A Gift of Time
by Leraiv Snape
Summary: Snape is shocked when he sees Hermione Granger, the girl he spent twenty years looking for, amongst the first years of Hogwarts...SSHG.
1. The Wheel Turns

Disclaimer: All characters, settings and generally recognizable properties belong to JKR, Warner Bros, Scholastic, etc. I can take credit only for the plot, or lack thereof.

A/N: I first started posting this story more than a year ago on this site, moved to Ashwinder, which is still my fave archive, and decided after majorly re-vamping it that I wanted to re-post it here as well. So, this is the newest, most updated version, and I flatter myself that it is far better than the previous incarnation. Enjoy!

The Wheel Turns

"Granger, Hermione." None of the students heard the catch in Professor McGonagall's voice. And even if they had, they would have attributed it to dryness of her throat, not to sudden shock.

As the eager girl half-ran, half-stumbled to the stool to jam the Sorting Hat on her head the Head Table went absolutely silent, and heads turned first to Albus Dumbledore, and then to Severus Snape.

The sallow-skinned, hollow-cheeked, coldly-distant and always-composed Potions Master was anything but. His black eyes glittered brightly, the high cheekbones were tinged with red, his mouth trembled, and both hands were gripping the edge of the table, white-knuckled.

No student would notice. But those on the staff who knew what to look for found it in his expression. Before them, in the space of breaths it took to say her name, their colleague aged thirty-one years had dissolved, leaving a blossoming adolescent of seventeen.

_But she will be a Gryffindor_, Snape thought bleakly, watching the girl with the hat. _She always was one. A lamb amongst wolves, the Gryffindor who penetrated the Slytherin hierarchy- and survived. My Hermione..._ But the child that had just emerged from under that hat's triumphant "GRYFFINDOR!" was not the curvaceous, self-assured young woman who had captured him all those years ago. She was stick-thin and small, her fizzy hair tumbling in all directions around her as she hurried forward, smiling nervously, desperately seeking approval. She was a flat-chested, impressionable child, not a woman at all.

But it was she. And all the questions he had pressed her for answers to those many years ago suddenly raced through his mind, their answers falling in neatly after them. It was as he had suspected. She had traveled in time. He closed his eyes as the Sorting continued, deaf to the rest, the name of his old enemy's son barely penetrating his spinning thoughts.

Traveled through time. And now she was one of his students.

888

"Frankly, I don't understand the fuss, Filius," Sinistra was saying to Flitwick. The short Head of Ravenclaw House was nodding gravely.

"You weren't there, Gwen," he replied as Snape swept past them, into the staff room. Minerva McGonagall reached out to touch his arm in sympathy. He shrugged her away, taking his usual seat by the fire, one long finger coming to rest on his temple as he stared unseeing into the flames.

"Wasn't where? I find myself at a bit of a loss as well," Marietta Lewis, teacher of Muggle Studies, said, pointedly staring at Dumbledore. "Albus, if you would care to fill

us in?"

"Severus- if you wish to tell the story to those who do not know," the Headmaster's voice was gentle as ever, though the eyes behind his spectacles were unusually grave, "it is your right."

"There is nothing for me to say," Snape said roughly.

"Wh-what's g-going on?" Quirrell stuttered.

"Most of the staff were here for it, but for those who were not...well..." Dumbledore paused, giving Snape one last chance to jump in. Snape stared directly into the flames. There was no indication that he had heard the Headmaster at all, except for his tense arms and straight back- nothing in the world could relax him now.

"Eighteen years ago, I received a great shock," Dumbledore started quietly. "I walked into my office to find a young woman standing there, looking mildly surprised and faintly confused. I asked her what she was doing. She replied that she had been sent." Snape and McGonagall's heads snapped to him in an identical motion, the first in uncomprehending shock, the second with a light of understanding.

"She told me her name was Hermione Granger. She was not one of my students at the school, nor had she ever been. But she seemed quite well aware of who I was- leading me to surmise that she was probably from a not-too-distant future, which she confirmed."

"Having no idea how she had been delivered, I also did not know how to send her back. Time is a tricky business, and while Time Turners can be used in exact ways with careful planning, this occurrence was too strange to simply send her forward and hope she ended up in the same year, hopefully the same day, as when she departed. She also implied that she had arrived to learn something very specific and necessary for her own age. What she was there to learn, I only partially discovered- and to this day I do not know why. But we agreed that only I would know the truth, that she would tell a story of having transferred from the Salem Witches Institute in America."

"She was sorted into Gryffindor, much as we saw tonight as a third year- though she was quite obviously physically matured beyond thirteen. But, not knowing how many years it would take for her to learn what she was seeking or to return her to her own time, we decided to sort her as young as conceivably possible to give ourselves enough time."

"The year she arrived in was, as you may have deduced, 1973. Interestingly enough, attending the school at that time- and in her year- were James Potter, Sirius Black," there were assorted grumblings and various ugly faces at this name, "and our own Potions Master, Severus Snape."

"I was on the staff," McGonagall added, her voice unusually subdued and much more human sounding that her normal crisp tones, "as were Filius, Vector, Hooch, Pomona and Kettleburn."

"Severus…?" It was clear the Headmaster thought it was time he speak. Snape gave him a swift look, which the headmaster countered with a slight shake of his head. "They do not need to hear all of it."

Severus snorted, and returned his gaze to the fire, weighing what he wanted to reveal. She had been sent. The rage started a slow simmering. It was so like Dumbledore not to reveal crucial information like that. Well, sent or not, there were parts of this tale that even the Headmaster did not know. The silence grew in the room, curiosity burning for all that he would leave unsaid. It nearly made him smile. The untold story would fill volumes, and leave him raw. Neither was a prospect he relished. His voice was coldly impersonal, flat and disdainful when he spoke.

"Miss Granger had- has- an astonishing ability to forgive others and find their good points, especially if they display intelligence. I quickly found that her ability in… Potions"- McGonagall's and Dumbledore's eyelids flickered just barely- "was the only one in the school equal to my own."

He swallowed, and stopped, realizing belatedly just how open this wound still gaped, but Dumbledore cleared his throat. Clearly, Snape was not allowed to be quite finished. "She remained at Hogwarts for four years. By the time she left we were," he groped for the right word to give nothing away to his often nosy and entirely-too-cloistered colleagues, "close." He closed the subject carefully, still not looking up.

Dumbledore was apparently satisfied, for he returned to the narrative himself. "Towards the middle of her sixth year, I created a rift in time using a powerful magic and sent her back through it- hopefully to the exact moment of her disappearance. For fourteen years, I have wondered whether we were successful. Sometime in Miss Granger's career at Hogwarts, we will all get to know."

Dumbledore smiled brightly, shattering the solemnity and looking around as if they were children who had just finished a thoroughly delightful story hour. "And with that, I think it's time for most of us, especially one old man, to turn in. Does anyone care to join me for a nightcap?"

Most of the staff looked as if they would indeed like to, but Snape's voice grated from the chair:

"Before you depart, Headmaster, a word?" It was not a request. Nor did anyone doubt that they would rather not be around for this particular confrontation. The staff room emptied instantly.

"How dare you?" The cold, controlled voice that Snape used on his students seeped out in his anger, and Dumbledore could see the arms on the chair shaking. "How DARE you not warn me!" Snape surged to his feet, turning for the first time to look the Headmaster in the eye.

"WHY did you not tell me she was coming?" The rage snapping in his black eyes would have terrified another. Dumbledore quietly waited, meeting the fury, allowing it to flame unchecked, to burn itself out.

"As much as I loved her…as desperately as I missed her, much as I searched for her… and you didn't think to warn me when you sent the owls this summer that HERMIONE GRANGER was coming to school _here_?"

"What would you have done, Severus? Expected the girl of seventeen to come out of the boats as they docked? Worrying about your own conduct? Fearing meeting her again?" Dumbledore's questions were quiet inquiries, which infuriated the younger man. The Headmaster should scream back at him, something to break the dam, release the pressure slowly closing around him since he had heard her name out of Minerva's mouth.

"What would have been gained by telling you? You haven't seen her for fourteen years and this eleven-year-old girl is not the Node you knew and fought with. I told no one. Even Minerva didn't know. I handled Miss Granger's letter personally."

"And sent? She was _sent_?" Snape continued to rage. "With a deliberate purpose in mind? Simply dropped in and then removed when the job is done? She is not a surgical tool! Do you know, do you have any idea…" he stopped. Even this man, who bared a soul with a single incisive look, would not hear the anguished words trapped in his throat.

"I can't change the past, Severus, or the future that she will face. I couldn't have told the seventeen-year-old grieving boy that the girl he had fallen in love with was returning to a violent time to fight a war- for by the time Miss Granger leaves us and returns, we will once again be embroiled in turmoil. None of us- except her- knew then what would happen now and what the future will bring." Dumbledore sighed. "It does, however, go without saying…She is your student in this timeline, Severus."

"Of course," Snape acquiesced- what did this man take him for?- and brushed past the Headmaster into the hallway. But once there, he stopped, his eyes wide.

"Headmaster…"

"Yes, Severus. She will have to enjoy and endure all that you remember."

Images from his school days kaleidoscoped through his mind, snatches of a foreign land he was irrevocably removed from. Snape drew the curtain over the fractured riot of memories the girl had inspired, closing himself once more.

Once he would have rejoiced to see her, now he saw only the ironic pain of the situation. His adolescent fantasy had come to life.

Hermione Granger had returned to Hogwarts.

888

Remus Lupin called the names in a perfunctory fashion, scrolling down the list, carefully looking at each face as they answered, trying to put them together his very first day.

"Grang-" he stumbled, lifted his head, looked straight at Hermione. She blushed, and lowered her eyes. He stared for barely an instant longer before saying, "I see Miss Granger is here with us already," and moving on to the next name.

After class, Lupin sat back reflectively. Hermione Granger. After her disappearance in his sixth year, he had never thought to see her again…certainly not as a thirteen-year-old.

Hermione had always hated boggarts. It was one of the reasons he hadn't wanted her to tackle one today in class. But there was only one way to be sure it was the girl he thought it would be. Wincing at the necessity, he nevertheless grabbed a handful of powder, threw it in the fire place and called: "Severus! If you have a moment?"

Snape stepped out, frowning. "What do you want, Lupin?"

"Hermione Granger- is that our-"

"Yes," Snape's eyes closed briefly in pain and he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes."

The two men looked at each other, one of their rare moments of understanding bridging the feud that had always separated them.

"I am so sorry, Severus."

"So am I."

888

Each year, day by day, Snape waited to see the sudden breath of understanding, the day when she would approach him. She was a know-it-all, friends with Harry Potter, whom he hated as intensely as he had ever hated the boy's father and Ron Weasley- all mouth and no brains, that one.

His cruelty to the three of them increased purposefully year-by-year, triumph-by-narrowly–won-triumph, his loathing a combination of spite, bitterness and the battles of his youth. And still he waited for the day she would rush into his dungeon office and ask the questions. For there would be questions.

Third year turned to fourth, he mocked her, sneered at her, gladly deducted points for her intelligence and love of learning- and jealously watched Viktor Krum take her to the ball. His heart seared watching the sweeping robes of periwinkle dance with someone else. Hermione Granger was slowly transforming from the little girl at the Sorting to the woman he had known. It was fitting that the eighteen-year-old Quidditch star would notice what none of the boys at Hogwarts had wit to see: Hermione Granger could be heart-stoppingly beautiful if she so chose.

Fourth year became fifth. His blood stopped in his veins when he realized that she was in the Ministry with Potter, the fool boy unable to trust that he would get the message and understand. He summoned the Order, prayed fervently that all would be well from his isolated position in Hogwarts, and kept his face coldly aloof when the bodies had been brought through.

She had a great slash across her chest, but she was breathing, and he had gazed at her face only briefly and discreetly before exiting the hospital with the other staff.

Fifth crossed to sixth, the war in full swing, his role as a double agent stretching the limits at both ends. An Unbreakable Vow to Narcissa Malfoy and he would have to show his colors, let everyone on both sides understand where his loyalties lay. But it was too late now to change that.

_It will be this year_, he thought, looking down at Hermione from the Head Table where she sat eating and talking animatedly with the two hated boys who were like her brothers. This was the Hermione he had known, the young woman from the Hogwarts of his time.

_It must be soon. This year, let it be this year…_By the end of this year he would be gone. There was no hope that Draco might accomplish his task, and if she went in seventh year, he would never know.

888

The vibrant notes of the harp hung on the air, shimmering into silence as the strings vibrated themselves to stillness. She smiled ruefully to no one. She was out of practice. Allowing her head to rest against the harp for a moment, she gathered her breath before reaching out to close the music, Warlock Shervin's Fifth Concerto. Wizard classical music fascinated her. It seemed that it altered the very air she breathed when played, rebounding off the stone walls not more than an arm's length in any direction to make the air glisten, the music almost tangible.

Fred and George's Marauder's Map had not only the school's secret passages, but the small rooms that pocketed them, and she had selected one not a hundred yards below Gryffindor Tower as a perfect place to keep her harp since third year, though practice had become an infrequent pastime.

She had never found much time to explore music with Ron and Harry- or anyone else. The Weasleys had no money and Harry's aunt and uncle had taken no interest, so she had always assumed that the regular rigmarole of dance, pottery, drawing, piano, voice, football, softball and karate that Muggle children endured had been skipped by her two best friends. There had never been a place to discuss it, or the slightest indication from either of them that they even knew music- or art- existed outside the Weird Sisters and the moving paintings that covered the castle walls.

Now it was March of her sixth year, and she had kept her harp and her voice to herself, an oddly protected private thing, as if she were waiting for the right person to receive the secret- which was a ridiculous notion. Who would she tell? Harry and Ron- and even Neville and Ginny- were the best friends she had ever had. Who to expose herself to if not to them?

But it was a thought she could not shake, a thought that had stilled her tongue for nearly five and a half years on the subject. She had thought she might tell Viktor…but when he had given her the perfect opening, mentioning the music that some of his classmates played under Karkaroff's instruction, her tongue seemed to have sealed itself, and would not come unglued on that subject, in spite of the fact that it was the only time she had ever heard "music" and "magical education" in the same breath.

What she really wanted, desperately wished for, was another musician- which Viktor had not been. Someone who would understand the…the thrill, the intensely solemn joy that came from playing a piece to perfection. A wizard who could feel the gathering power of the notes penned by magic. History books had recorded orders and societies of wizards and witches dedicated to music and magic, and some of the tales of what they had accomplished were legendary in scale. But the most recent records indicated dwindling numbers due to Ministry law restricting the study of music, and the last remaining order had faded out of existence over two centuries prior. There were almost no professional mage-musicians left.

And for all its thoroughness in some ways, Hogwarts did not offer classes in music- or any of the arts, traditional or contemporary. In fact, the subject seemed to be not so much neglected as taboo at the finest school of Witchcraft and Wizardry in Europe. Hagrid had given Harry a rough pipe their first year, which Harry had used to play Fluffy to sleep, but no other time in five years had the topic even been presented, much less given a practical application.

She set the music on the floor next to her stool in a neat stack, yawned, stretched, and stood. It was nearly nine. In a few minutes she would be outside curfew and out-of-bounds. There was a stretch of corridor she had to pass through to get to the Fat Lady, and there was no point getting caught for foolishness. She spelled the door behind her to remain locked to anyone except herself and started up the granite-floored corridor, which would spill her out behind a large tapestry of the Wizengamot Convention of 1712, bordered in gold.

As she reached the top, fingers latched around the heavy brocade to thrust it aside, she heard the one sound that she could never explain herself to.

Footfalls. Soft, and light, and accompanied by the cold voice of her Potions Professor.

But Snape's coldness had been replaced by fear, and a sense of urgency she was sure he would never display in front of a student. Thread-knotted cloth still clutched in her hand, Hermione breathed lightly and slowly and listened:

"He knows then." That was Dumbledore's tired, aging voice, laced with defeat. Hermione's throat squeezed with an indefinable panic. She had never heard the abundantly energetic headmaster sound so completely…beaten.

"He knows. I have used every trick of Occlumency for the past twenty years to keep him from knowing, but he knows. The Echo was only temporarily bound to her, it broke free of Lily Potter at the moment of her death. And now…well, now he has discovered that it was not destroyed with her, but to the contrary, it was released."

"With as much power as he has already gained, this time we would be much harder pressed to stop him from gaining access to it, and manipulating it."

"Indeed. We worked two decades ago to prevent it from happening, even though we only partially succeeded, and-" here the sentence stopped, a peculiar note creeping into Snape's voice. He sounded cramped, almost chained, as if it took a great deal of effort to push the rest of the words through the obstacle of his lips, "-and here, now, Miss Granger does not know anything yet. She was born the Node, but training is essential. We cannot speak to her, or ask her to help us again- not yet."

Hermione's heart thudded loudly, responding to the mention of her name. She hoped Snape's hearing was not as good as she feared, and retreated a few steps down the passage.

"Severus…" Surprised disappointment tinged the older man's soft utterance. "Surely, after twenty years…no…you're not, are you?"

A snort, and obliquely: "Your friend Alastor Moody- or rather, Bartemius Crouch Junior- told me once that there are marks that never come off. He was right."

A sigh, the decision to press no farther. "Well…perhaps it is time. There does not seem to be a better one. We need her considerable talents now."

"Yes." Hermione had crept forward again, unable to resist the temptation of listening to something that so plainly concerned her. What had made Dumbledore so very sadly disappointed? But the footsteps were drifting out of earshot, and the sound decreased first to a mumble, then to a few punctuated sighs, and finally drizzled into nothing in the dark.

When Hermione was sure they had gone, she tore the tapestry aside, her gaze tracking down the long hall where they had disappeared.

"_Miss Granger does not know anything yet."_ The words had not been sneered, or sullen, or angry. They had carried none of the deadly-voiced threats he hurtled in class on a daily basis. They had been factual. And regretful.

But it had been Snape who had said them. _"Surely after twenty years…"_ What could that mean? Twenty years of spying? Of being a Death Eater?

And what was a Node? The notion of being born anything made her skin itch. Harry could keep his highly individual "Chosen One from Birth" status.

Her Astronomy essay held no interest for her as she sat in Gryffindor Tower, listening to Ron patiently explain to Harry why his chess pieces insisted in their Cockney accents that he make a different move than "Queen to C5".

What would she know? From whom would she learn? Jupiter's orbit crossed Pluto's as the conversation ran on repeat through her mind.

888

"Now, Albus?" McGonagall asked softly. "Are we sure? Is she ready?"

"She will never be ready," Snape's voice came out sandpaper rough. "But she will survive. One of the benefits of knowing the past is the knowledge that it all must remain pristinely untouched for this future to exist."

"Will she know enough to help us now, though?"

"We can only hope," Dumbledore replied. A small smile, unusually sad, touched the Headmaster's features as he looked at his Potions Master's drawn countenance and over-bright eyes. "She gave me a date, you know. The exact date of her departure."

The sharpness on Snape's face as it jerked to him was hungry- hungry in a pure, honest way that belied his intense loneliness and longing for the girl, a ghost of his beloved past that had the misfortune to be amongst the living.

"When?" he asked, past caring that his voice was stressed and low, his thoughts obvious to both Dumbledore and McGonagall.

"Tomorrow, Severus," the older man replied. "The date she gave me was tomorrow. March 14th, 1997."

"So you are already determined to send her?"

"I was determined from the instant her name was brought to my attention as a talented Muggle-born witch. There was no chance that it was coincidence. And I can't not send her- she already went."

McGonagall closed her eyes. Time travel and the implications that spun so readily from it made her dizzy if she pondered it too long. She loved the practical application of magic, but the theoretical wrappings of time and the magic involved seemed so… fruitless. Few traveled, and many of those few died. For the headmaster to send a student back deliberately seemed irresponsible- except that they already knew she had gone and succeeded and vanished, and now they desperately needed the knowledge she would bring back with her.

"Will her information of then be useful now?"

"I believe so," Snape hesitated. "Last time we found what was clearly a temporary solution. This time I hope to find a more permanent one. I fear, however, that like the Philosopher's Stone, the Echo can be only either well-hidden- with the potential to be found by the wrong person- or destroyed. Five years ago, Nicholas Flamel agreed to demolish the Stone in the greater interests of humanity. I think it is likely time to find a way to obliterate the Echo as well."

"It is a constantly changing magic, not an object," McGonagall warned. "Destruction might be impossible."

"Do not lecture me on the things I studied," he spat. "It was written by men, it can be unwritten by them."

"But before we can do that," Dumbledore intervened gently, "Miss Granger must go- must learn all she will, and must return."

"Tomorrow?" Snape's tone held both hope and dread. For a closed man, he was remarkably open.

"Tomorrow."

"I do not wish to be here."

"You must. We have to deliberately open the rift she steps into. A Time Turner cannot handle the move of decades. As the most powerful wizard in my employ I will require your assistance in opening the rift and sending her back."

"I cannot. Headmaster…surely another-"

"No, Severus," and the blue eyes promised that there was nothing to appeal to behind them, "I want you to be here."

"Do not ask me to face her as she is leaving- or returning," Snape whispered, eyes closed. He was not in the habit of begging, but the rigidly imposed self-control of five and a half years was beginning to disintegrate as he contemplated facing a Hermione that remembered all he did.

"You have never run," Dumbledore's voice was equally quiet, but burned with clarity of purpose. "Never from a fight, or a lecture, or a class room. You have never shied from what I have asked of you. Don't run from yourself, Severus. No matter how fast you fly, you always reach the end of the road to find that you're right there with you."

"Headmaster-"

"No. You will assist me. You don't have a choice Severus. This is not a request." Snape glowered at the Headmaster, but the firm sky-colored eyes won. Snape lived under his protection alone- and he played by Dumbledore's rules, no matter the game.

Dumbledore turned to McGonagall and asked lightly, as if requesting a book: "Can I persuade you to bring me Miss Granger tomorrow at noon?"

"Of course Albus."

Snape could not stand the all-too-understanding pity that glittered in McGonagall's eyes as he turned from them and strode out of the office.


	2. The Headmaster's Office

Disclaimer: Not mine. 

The Headmaster's Office

"Malfoy is up to something. You know I'm right," Harry said seriously as they stood in the seventh floor corridor. Harry was still trying to break into the Room of Requirement, and Ron and Hermione were along- albeit reluctantly- as lookouts and consultants. At his continued insistence, they exchanged a look.

"Yes, but, Dumbledore has it under control, Harry." Hermione shook her head, her friend's stubbornness wearing her down.

"Yeah, mate, I don't reckon we should worry too much about it," Ron backed her up. "What's Malfoy going to do right under Dumbledore's nose?"

"Quirrell snuck Lord Voldemort in here right under Dumbledore's nose," Harry replied instantly. Hermione and Ron frowned, as if considering this for the first time. "I'm _positive_ he's no good," the dark-haired boy pressed.

"All right then, Harry, we'll help. But first, get the memory out of Slughorn and then-"

"Miss Granger?" Hermione stopped talking, spinning as Ron's eyes grew wide. Professor McGonagall stood not twenty paces from them. The three exchanged furtive glances. None of the teachers had proven likely to help them in discovering what Malfoy was doing. They seemed to think that Snape and Dumbledore had it well contained, and if she had heard them discussing it, there was a displeased lecture in store for them.

But she was standing with a peculiar expression on her face, mouth drawn and sharp eyes over-bright in the well-lit corridor, gazing at Hermione and looking as if she were trying both not to smile and not to cry at the same time.

"Professor?" Hermione asked timidly as the silence stretched too long.

"Miss Granger…" McGonagall voice was soft and warm for an instant- then she cleared her throat and returned to the brisk, sharp tones she normally used, seeming to banish the brilliance of her eyes at the same time. "The Headmaster requests your presence in his office."

"Why?" Harry and Ron asked quickly, glancing between them.

Professor McGonagall pinned them with a look that told them clearly that it was hardly their business. "That, Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley, has nothing to do with you. Miss Granger may be free to tell you when she returns. Now- if you'll kindly come with me?" Hermione looked at the two boys, who gave her wide-eyed worry in return, and followed the professor wordlessly.

888

Outside the gargoyle leading to the office, Professor McGonagall stopped and touched Hermione's shoulder gently. Like the first moments in the corridor with Harry and Ron, in place of the professor's customary severity there was a compassion so similar to a mother's that Hermione swallowed hard. What was she about to hear? Panic seized her throat as she imagined the atrocities the Death Eaters might mete out on her parents if they discovered who she was and the place she occupied at Harry's side.

"Professor, my parents…?" she croaked, shuddering as the words passed her lips.

"No, Miss Granger, fear not for your family. They are safe," Professor McGonagall instantly hushed her. "But…no matter what happens, or when- remember that we would never send you into danger," her professor told her softly.

Hermione stared, her relief jolted out by the adrenaline that widened her eyes and hitched her breath. "Professor…?" and her voice warbled more than she would have liked.

But the sympathetic woman vanished as she pronounced the password and the gargoyle groggily shuffled aside. There were no more words- of comfort or warning, as the staircase rotated them to the top and the oak door that for the first time promised not safety, but hazard.

888

"Ah, Hermione," Dumbledore gave her his reassuring smile from the other side of his desk. It did little to warm her or dispel her fears. Tucked in a corner of the room stood Professor Snape, and he did not look up as the Headmaster greeted her. He appeared paler than usual from what she could see of the sallow jaw line and temple as he bent over a book.

She started forward at McGonagall's hand on her back, and stopped as Dumbledore lifted a warning finger. "Don't move any farther." She stopped, and noticed how he skirted the middle of the carpet himself, squeezing around to Professor Snape by pressing against the furniture.

"What-" she started to ask.

"Be still, Miss Granger," Snape hissed in a deadly voice, eyes still locked on his book. "Just for once, you should learn to curb your ever-flapping tongue."

Dumbledore, however, gave her a level look. "Time is rather short now, Hermione, and there is little of it for explanations. We are sending you…elsewhere, to learn something vital to the war. You will be perfectly safe." Snape barely contained a snort, knowing the glares he would receive- and the explanation he would have to tender if he expressed his disbelief. If only the Headmaster knew. 'Perfectly safe' was hardly the term he would use to describe Hermione's three and a half years at Hogwarts of his past.

_You will be perfectly safe._ Her trust in the Headmaster was absolute, and it shone in her dark eyes as she met his steady blue gaze. "What is it you wish me to learn, sir?" she asked softly, and there was no shakiness now. Snape felt his heart squirm at the quiet, accepting firmness of her voice. She did not flinch from the danger, or ask 'Why me?' or any other irrelevant nonsense…but, without question, consented to the task that could kill her, and would prepare her for a lifetime of pain.

To Hermione's surprise, Dumbledore hesitated at her question and then turned to Snape. "Severus?"

His head snapped up, his eyes blazing as he looked straight to her. Though Dumbledore had asked the question, he was answering her, and Hermione felt a burning intensity in their connection that she had never before experienced with anyone. "The clarinet. Listen for it. When you find that, seek the Echo."

"Clarinet? Echo?" she pressed. But his eyes shrouded as swiftly as they had blazed, the passionate intensity extinguished.

"Must I repeat myself, Miss Granger? If you are one of our most talented witches, you should have a better memory than that."

"Severus," Dumbledore quelled him, and the malevolent gaze returned to its reading. "Is that all we can say?"

"Too much information now will change the result, Headmaster," Snape countered, not looking up. "We learned together." At this last bit, all three heads locked on the Potion's Master, but no voice broke the tension flaring in the room. Long moments stretched- Hermione fumbling to find a question to ask, Dumbledore content to wait, and Snape's lips moving as he concentrated fiercely on his book.

"Where am I going?" Hermione finally burst, question directed to the Headmaster, though she continued to look at Snape as if she had never seen him before.

Dumbledore looked at her with a distant, almost wistful smile, "Somewhere very familiar to you, my dear."

Scarce had the last syllable left his lips when Snape murmured: "The rift is completely open, sir. She can go." His voice sounded strange, even to his own ears.

"In a moment, Hermione, I will ask you to step into the middle of my office." Hermione pulled her eyes from her professor to give the open space a glare. Whatever magic had formed there, it was invisible, but powerful. She could feel it like a gash in the air, curtains blown open for a stiff foreign breeze to enter the otherwise comfortable office. "When you…arrive…at your destination, tell me that you were sent, and that you are there to learn."

"Tell _you_…?"

"Yes. It will be made clearer to you when you get there-"

"Headmaster- she must go now!" Snape called, feeling his throat close around the words as they left his mouth. The magic was reaching a crackling intensity, and, as though drapes fluttered open, Hermione glimpsed a picture of a corridor through the gap, overlaid on the plush rug of the office.

"The rift is unstable and will soon close. Now- into the middle, Hermione!" The blue eyes that she looked to for reassurance were a war of desperation and confidence.

"Good luck, and be careful Miss Granger!" McGonagall bade her, fear dominant in the eyes of Gryffindor's Head of House.

_Important to the war effort._ They needed her to go. Dumbledore had promised her safety. No more time for caution or questions. Taking a deep breath, she stepped into a hole that she could not see, only feel-

-Hermione felt something strange pass over her, like ice, then warm, then becoming unbearably hot-

-and she was jerked forward, losing her balance, and she would have stumbled, except that one cannot stumble in a place that has no solid floor. Panic threatened to overwhelm her-

-and she was out, reeling, reaching for the support of the nearest bookcase before her vision cleared and she could take in her surroundings.

She was still standing in the Headmaster's office, but Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall and Snape were gone. The room was empty.

Uncertain of where to go or what to do- cryptic was a generous description of their hasty preparatory warnings- she seated herself in one of the soft chairs in front of the desk and knit her hands together, waiting.

The silver instruments spun and whirred at her. Her natural curiosity almost drove her to examine them, but she did not think Dumbledore would appreciate walking in to find a student poking and prodding his things. Fawkes tilted his head at her curiously from his perch. She tried to evade the distinct feeling that she was…wrong.

Not doing something wrong. Not in trouble, but just _wrong_. Like her very existence was out of joint.

The door handle turned behind her and she twisted expectantly. Dumbledore entered, his trademark sherbet lemon between his teeth, and stopped, staring at her in surprise.

Her stomach dropped. No matter that he had sent her, he was clearly not expecting this.

"Professor Dumbledore?" she said tremulously after a long silence. Dumbledore nodded slowly, warmth weighted with suspicion in the normally bright eyes.

"I am he."

Clearly, it was her turn, but Hermione was at a complete loss as to what to say. Best to start as this man had instructed her. "Professor Dumbledore sent me," she said hesitantly, aware as she said it how absurd it sounded. His eyebrows rose.

"Most curious," he replied, "as I can testify with certainty that I have never seen you in my life."

She stared at him…and let the wheels that had stopped on her arrival start spinning. The carpet under her feet was the same as always, but the colors glittered brighter in the afternoon sun, and the instruments cluttering his desk included several china and silver ornaments that she knew Harry had broken only last year. And even the man before her seemed…different. The remains of auburn still streaked hair and beard, and his beard wasn't quite long enough yet. But she had taken too long to answer, for he was considering her very seriously, sherbert lemon stuck in his cheek and forgotten.

"Perhaps you had better start at the beginning," he directed, a slight of bite of mistrust clear in his voice as he sat down behind his desk.

She took a deep breath, searching for the best place to start. _"It will be made clearer to you when you get there…" _Perhaps the only place to start _was_ at the beginning."My name is Hermione Granger, sir. I am a muggle-born witch, currently a sixth year Gryffindor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 1997. I entered your office not five minutes ago, shortly before noon, and stepped into a powerful magical field only to be instantly moved. I have apparently arrived in the same place that I left, but the three professors previously in the room had vanished. I was told- by you- to tell you that I was coming, and that I had been sent to learn about something vital to the war with Voldemort."

Dumbledore had listened politely, steepling his fingers, the misgiving fading as she spoke in earnest. But at the mention of the last name, he sat bolt upright and very still. It was a long moment between the fading of her voice and his next words. "1997?" He waited for her nod, then asked: "Twenty-four years? And still the war rages?"

"Ermmm…" Hermione hesitated, head spinning as she tried to answer his question and fathom her predicament- _twenty-four years?_- and decided that for the first part, she would go with the simplest- albeit not-quite-true- answer. "Yes."

Dumbledore abruptly deflated, looking old, almost as old as he had this entire last year that she had been at Hogwarts. Twenty-four years had made a difference in the lined face and eyes, but he changed remarkably in the space of an instant, exhaustion adding wrinkles to his tightened mouth and nose.

"Still? Two and a half decades later…?"

He halted, recalled himself and gave her a quiet, reassuring smile. "I apologize. There is much that must be explained to you. Miss Granger…did anyone tell you your destination or what it was you would be doing?"

"No sir."

"And I…my future self, sent you?"

"Yes sir. You said it would be clearer once I got here." She teetered on the verge of mentioning the clarinet, but Dumbledore hadn't seemed to know about that when he turned to Snape, and she kept her mouth closed.

"I said it would be clearer when you arrived?" He drummed his fingers on the desk, tapping them for a moment as he glanced past the lattice-worked windows before looking to her again. "I'm not sure I agree, but, in that case, Miss Granger, I will do what I can to enlighten you. It is September 1st of the year 1973. In approximately one half-hour, the Hogwarts Express will arrive bearing all of the students for this school year. As you doubtless already know, we too are embroiled in a war- though it is quiet for now- against the self-proclaimed Lord Voldemort, though for us, the battle has just barely begun." Here he stopped, as if trying to think of other things, and then leaned forward, switching to questions once more.

"_How_ did you get here?"

"I don't really know, sir. Professors Snape and Dumbledore opened a…a hole, I guess, and I stepped into it. They called it a rift, and said it was unstable, and that I had to hurry. But I didn't get a chance to study it." The regret in her voice was thoughtfully genuine as she thought of the missed opportunity.

"A rift. Interesting indeed." A tilt of the silvering head and: "So much for your arrival. What of your departure? Is there a warning sign- a certain thing that will happen, or something you will learn- that will tell you about when you ought to return to your own time?"

"Not that they told me."

He gave her a smile that had the beginnings of mischief touching it, his slightly doddering madcap sense of adventure that always shone at the strangest times. Confused, frightened and alone, Hermione saw little to smile at, but her mouth responded to the deeper amusement in the Headmaster and she felt his confidence feeding and warming her.

"I was cryptic, wasn't I? I shall spend your time here discovering how to open this rift you have described and readying to send you back through it to the appropriate period. When you feel you have learned what you must, come to me, and I will do my best to be ready. Until then… I want to sort you into third year. It will be believable…barely, but possible. As we both know nothing of the reason I sent you here, I want to give you as much time as possible...unless I am to send you elsewhere? Away from Hogwarts?"

"I don't think so, sir," she answered carefully. No one had told her any different. "I think I am to stay here."

His grin was benign as he winked at her. "I don't suppose you know any French?"

"No- why?" she asked, completely off-guard.

"If you are to be Sorted as a third-year, we will have to claim you as a transfer student. You have the significant disadvantage of sounding as if you're straight from Aylesbury."

"I am, sir."

"So I surmised. But most students in the Isles attend Hogwarts, and if not Hogwarts, then her sister in France, Beauxbatons, but I can hardly claim you're from that region if you don't speak the language…" He tapped his upper lip thoughtfully with a long finger for a moment, then his eyes snapped to her. "Of course. I think that will be an admirable solution…Miss Hermione Granger, what do you know of America?"

"Very little, sir."

"Hmmm. Well- as of now, you have transferred out of the Salem Witches' Institute in Salem, Massachusetts, the Head of which is a thoroughly delightful- if slightly stuffy- matron by the name of Marsella Howards."

"Why did I transfer, sir?" she asked.

"Your father got a better job offer here," he spun quickly, "and your family decided to move- back, obviously, since you are clearly from England."

"Perhaps it would be better if my parents still dwelled in America and I were being sent here because they thought I was old enough to be so far away from them," she countered. She focused on the many stories from her childhood rattling around in her mind…it was 1973. Where were her parents? Her mother was in university…and her father had just graduated, which meant- "That's considering, of course, sir, that my parents have not even met one another yet. My mother is only three years older than I am right now. I cannot 'go home' for the holidays."

"Too right. Very good, Miss Granger. A perfectly reasonable story for you to tell any of the curious that might bother you for details."

"Thank you, sir."

But she had already lost him again, the grey look stealing over his face as he drummed his desk, peering out the window. "Twenty-four years," she heard him mutter.

"Ermm- Professor?" she murmured hesitantly.

"Hmm? Ah- I apologize. Do forgive an old man's thoughts for creeping up on him like that. Did you happen to bring anything with you?"

"No," she admitted, frowning. If her professors had been so prepared for this, why hadn't they allowed her to at least pack a bag? "We sort of skipped that stage."

"Then the house-elves will find you suitable wear and books. I think…yes. And not a word about this, even to the staff. They will accept my explanation and I will research a way to return you to your own time when you need to do so."

"Thank you, sir."

"Not at all. I have to admit I am intrigued- your position gives me a very different kind of puzzle to evaluate." His eyes twinkled once more. "You will be Sorted tonight with the first years."

"Yes, sir."

He smiled, and she stood. The once more marked absent cast to his fact indicated clearly that the interview was over. Letting herself out the door and down the spiral staircase at once familiar and not, Hermione felt loneliness descend like a cloak that grew heavier with every step downward. Gone were Harry and Ron, Ginny and Neville and even Parvati and Lavender- vapid as they had been, they were company and she had known them. They had even been members of the DA. Here there was no one whom she knew.

Squaring her shoulders, she pushed away the tears that rose in her throat to prick at her eyes. She had work to do…and Dumbledore had sworn to send her home as soon as she learned what she needed for the war.

888

The massive castle was deserted as the gargoyle sprang into place behind her. No sounds echoed off the walls, no cheerful greetings or the wild laughter of the misbehaving. With a pang more violent that she would have thought possible, recalling the Catherine wheels that had sparkled in the air last spring to set fire to Hogwarts during Umbridge's reign, she desperately missed Fred and George.

She stopped at a window, overlooking the lake- Harry's task and the cold hours she had been bewitched at the bottom of it replaying slowly as she waited. And, as she stood lost in thought, she saw it. The Hogwarts Express! It chugged into view, streaming white smoke like a banner. When it screeched to a halt, she saw the students tumbling out. Hagrid's familiar form was wading amongst the tiny first years, and a smile touched her mouth, along with the sudden need to blink away tears. He, and some of the professors, would be the only familiar faces here.

1973. _James Potter_. Harry's father. And his mother must be here too- and of course Sirius, and Remus Lupin…a wide grin was splitting her face, containing her tears. If Harry was as much like James as everyone claimed, she was not alone.

888

"And tonight…" All of the first years had been Sorted. Dumbledore had found Hermione in the entrance hall and bid her wait in a side room off the Great Hall until he could inform her peers. "…I have to announce a transfer student!"

The staff were suddenly nudging each other, frowning. It appeared that they were as surprised as the student body.

"A third year from the Salem Witches Institute in America, Miss Hermione Granger!" Hermione stepped out, feeling thoroughly embarrassed and very grateful that she was not Harry. If this was what it was like to be him all the time, she would pass.

"Please, put on the Sorting Hat," Dumbledore instructed. Flitwick halted mid-stride where he had been removing them, putting both aging stool and careworn hat back down in the center of the hall.

Hermione carefully examined the hall as she walked slowly towards the Sorting Hat, fighting the urge to sweep her hair in front of her face to hide herself. Most faces were curiously friendly as necks craned to study her. Her eyes swept the Slytherin table, and she recognized, with an unpleasant jolt, one of the prefects- none other than Lucius Malfoy- speaking softly with his friend Walden Macnair, another known Death Eater in her time. She fought to keep her face composed and quickly averted her eyes, looking for a less disturbing place to settle them.

She found it in a startlingly handsome boy at Gryffindor table, one watching her with a slightly calculating look to his eye, and a smile playing around the edges of his mouth. He was seated next to a slender boy with mouse-brown hair and across from-

-it could have been Harry. The messy black hair spiking up all over the place, the easy smile, the intensity. _Except, of course,_ she thought, echoing the words of so many teachers, Ministry members and other adults, _for the eyes_.

But now she was at the stool, and had no time to look for Lily in the crowd. She slid onto it smoothly, and pulled the hat over her head.

"Ah. Another one. Fine mind, indeed, one of the best I've seen...but your sense of loyalty and your courage- my goodness yes- so strongly developed, leaves absolutely no doubt, no possibility at all. And since you already are one anyway…Better stick to GRYFFINDOR!"

The Gryffindors clapped and whistled, cheering as the new student walked over to sit down with them. There was much whispering of "Budge up!" that fluttered down the table. An American witch was a curiosity that all wanted to indulge.

Hermione slowly approached the table, swallowing nervously. A flash of dark red hair crowned green eyes- and she identified Lily Evans, seated with several other girls, looks of undisguised curiosity frank in their eyes as they stared at her.

But she could not keep herself from looking down the table to where the boys that she knew- would know- as men were seated with the other that she had never gotten to meet.

"She's pretty," James remarked high-handedly, dark eyes flashing as he glanced at his best friend to see what he would say as the girl gradually approached them.

"Yeah," Sirius grunted noncommitally. James hid a grin in his hand. The studied air of nonchalance was one his friend already had down to an art, but it was hardly concealing to anyone who knew him. His interest was piqued, heightened by the fact that she was foreign.

"She's also coming this way," Remus muttered.

"May I join you?" she asked politely.

"Of course," James scooted down the bench to indicate room between himself and Remus. "There's always room for more."

"Sirius Black," Sirius was saying as she took her seat, hand extended. She smiled, reached to take it, only to have him take her fingers and bring the back of her knuckles to his lips to brush them with his mouth. Hermione had to keep herself from gasping as he gave her a wink. _This_ was what Sirius had been like? He looked nothing like the waxen, shadow-cheeked, brooding man that she had met, or even the slightly less haggard but no less shuttered man who had died in the Department of Mysteries last spring. Unbidden, her throat closed. In twenty-four years, this laughing boy whose mouth just brushed her knuckles would be dead, and that lackluster, dying face struggled for dominance with the very alive one in front of her eyes making her blink to rid herself of the unwanted image.

"All right, all right, let someone with slightly less pure-blood chivalry coursing through their veins get a word in," James groused good naturedly. His handshake was firm and natural. Hermione smiled genuinely at his: "James Potter."

"Remus Lupin," the quiet boy said, squeezing the end of her fingers.

"Peter Pettigrew," the last voice squeaked. Hermione froze, hatred roaring in her ears so loudly she feared they could all hear it. She was listening to the wheezing confession in her third year, to Harry's choked explanation of Voldemort's rise at this boy's bidding and with his aid in her fourth…

She couldn't breathe, but she didn't need to. She had a dim impression of something cold and soft grabbing at her hand and then falling away.

"Hello," she finally managed. "I'm Hermione Granger."

"So Dumbledore said," James said around a mouthful of mashed potatoes. No one seemed to have noticed her lapse in courtesy. "What do you think?" The drumstick in one hand waved eloquently to include the Great Hall and Hogwarts in general.

"I think it's beautiful- what I've seen of it, anyway," she swiftly qualified. There was much she would have to remember that she didn't know.

"Potter!" A big, bouncing boy with golden hair and shining blue eyes slapped James on the back so hard his spoon of greens clattered into Peter's pumpkin juice as he stopped, his eyes already on Hermione. Something about him seemed very familiar-

"Ludovic Bagman. Ludo for short. Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team," he told her by way of explanation and introduction. "I don't suppose _you_ play?"

"Erm…no," Hermione replied decisively. Out of the corner of her eyes she could see Sirius and James shake their heads sadly as she looked at the boy in front of her. Oddly enough, Ludo Bagman had changed startlingly little in the past two and a half decades. His fit body would be potbellied, his laugh lines more pronounced and his nose broken in several places, but the same round face and boundless kinetic energy exuded from him at forty as well as seventeen. "As a matter of fact, I'm 'abominable' to quote one of my friends from back home."

"Really?" he stared at her earnestly, as if the hope in his gaze could persuade her to change her answer.

"Yes, really. Why?"

"Well, you know, a Chaser graduated and we're holding tryouts this Friday…" he continued to eyeball her with some disappointment. "Too bad you don't play."

"Hey Ludo- I'm trying out this Friday," James poked his friend.

"I know, but, well, the other two Chasers are girls, and girls work out so well together…if you change your mind?" he trailed off hopefully, still minding Hermione, as if enough prodding could encourage her to discover previously ignored brilliance. He gave them another energetic grin and bounced down the table to sell Quidditch to another gaggle of girls.

"'The other two Chasers are girls'," James mimicked with a snort. "So? I can best any girl in the house!"

"You will mate." Sirius was studying his fingernails in a way that indicated this was a long-standing conversation that repeated regularly. "And he'll let you on and that'll be great."

"Yeah…and then somebody like Pratcher'll yell 'Favoritism' and we'll be off the races. Favoritism because my dad and Ludo's go way back," he told Hermione. "_They_ used to play Quidditch on the same team. They used to have an act they'd do - fake out the other team…it was pretty amazing," James proceeded to demonstrate using his fingers as broomsticks. Watching him wave his arms about brought another bout of homesickness to roll her food in her stomach- he looked so much like Ron when he was strategizing, arms and fingers flying, like as not into his neighbor's dinner…

_You will go home_, she told herself sternly, _so do not worry. And when you do, you will never see these people again._

888

Hermione carefully stationed herself in the middle of the pack of boys when they started upstairs after dinner, making sure her intimate knowledge of the castle did not betray her feet into taking her there too quickly.

"Gryffindor Tower," Sirius said proudly, gesturing at the portrait of the Fat Lady. Hermione smiled. Some things did not change…she swiftly took her mind off that track. Nothing could be gained by longing for Harry and Ron. "Much better than the Slytherins'," Sirius was telling her. "They have to rot in some moldy dungeon."

"Think they have snakes in their common room?" James wondered. "'Vermillion'," he told the portrait, and she swung open. James put one foot forward, glanced back to say something to Sirius, and hastily backed away from the opening, bowing slightly with one hand extended.

"Ladies first," he said shyly, the raucous child gone, replaced by a boy desperately wishing to impress.

With the distinct feeling that he was _not_ speaking to her, Hermione twisted her head to follow his gaze.

At thirteen, Lily Evans already bore the promise of great beauty. Her skin glowed soft and flawless in the fire and torchlight, high cheekbones the boundaries of a slim nose and large, almond-shaped green eyes. And her hair…it was a long sheet of darker red that almost became brown in some lights with gold strands shot through it. It was nothing like Ron's fire-engine-red curls and had none of the untidiness that would be her son's trademark. Hermione felt at once too clunky, awkward and unkempt next to this blossoming woman.

James' instantly-acquired manners told all the story she needed to know. Young though they were, it was clear he was already quite taken with her. Sirius and Remus were rolling their eyes at each other behind James' bent back, avoiding the gazes of several of the girls behind Lily, an intense dislike of Sirius evident in their drawn mouths and chilled gazes.

"Thank you, Potter," she replied stiffly, her eyes icy as she, too, glowered at Sirius. He returned her glare with a sarcastic, simpering smile. The pack of girls moved past them, leaving the air almost palpably colder as they brushed by and clambered through the portrait hole.

The boys followed, Hermione last, her head tilted in thought. Somehow…somehow she had always imagined them together, friends like she was with Ron and Harry. But she realized suddenly that she actually knew very little about these men as boys. They had been friends with one another, Animagi, rule-breakers. Three of the four proved intensely loyal to each other and the Light. Remus was gentle, Sirius dark and closed-off, but helpful, passionate, James brave through his death, protecting his wife and his son…

But as schoolmates? Nothing. And she could not expect these barely-teenage children to behave like their mid-thirties counterparts.

And it was clear that Lily Evans wanted little to do with James Potter and the Marauders in general, mostly Sirius.

"What're you thinking about?" Remus asked softly as she folded into an armchair.

"I don't know," she lied, rousing herself from her musings and giving him a quick smile. "Home, I guess."

"Yeah. But…Hogwarts is a great school," he tried to comfort her. "One of the best. Some say the best in the world."

"I know."

"Don't worry. We'll take care of you," he said. The seriousness of his investment turned her lips upward involuntarily. _We'll take care of you._ Just like Harry and Ron.

"Thank you," she said, her voice light, but her attention on the fireplace. Offer he might, but she wasn't here to be protected. She was here to learn- and not from professors. Her eyes flitted back to him again as he shuffled a pack of Exploding Snap cards.

"So what is the loveliest girl in Gryffindor doing sulking by the fire?" Sirius was suddenly crouched in front of her, black eyes large in mock-worship. She could not keep the grin from her face as he continued to hold her gaze with his serious countenance, and she could feel herself blushing.

"Sirius…" Remus warned gently.

"That color looks good on you," Sirius told her, a smile splitting his face. Hermione flushed a deeper red and quickly turned her eyes elsewhere. Neither Harry or Ron had ever called her 'lovely', and in spite of her knowledge of his future, she had met few boys that could equal Sirius' charm.

"Ermmm…" she stammered. Sirius stood, looking very pleased with himself for flustering her.

"The girl's dormitory is that way," Remus pointed, saving her embarrassment.

"Thank you," she said gratefully, rising swiftly.

"You aren't by chance an early riser, are you?" he asked hopefully.

"I am. Why?"

"Breakfast tomorrow?" he asked hopefully. He jerked his head at Sirius and James. "These sods don't roll their carcasses out of bed in time to do anything but shove a piece of toast in their mouths and go to class."

"Beauty sleep, Remus." Sirius punctuated this statement with a yawn that gave them a display of his teeth. "Why do all the girls chase after me? Because I get a healthy ten hours of sleep a night."

"I like breakfast," Hermione agreed.

"Cool. Well, if you're going to go see your room, get settled…" She nodded. "'Night then."

"'Night."

She started up the circular staircase to her room, and the overwhelming familiarity struck her yet again. So strong it lodged like a stone in her middle…would she spend all of her time here longing to be home? She swallowed the tears that once again threatened to come. _Dumbledore has promised to send you back when you're done. You're not alone._

And for the second time that evening, Hermione felt a solid rock of pity forming in her stomach. Harry stood out and alone always, he had for all of his life- ignored and abused before arriving at Hogwarts, raised on an impossibly high pedestal, hero-worshipped and feared in the magical world. Was his life always like this- day in, day out, the knowledge that he was _different_ from all those around him closer than the life's blood running in his veins?

A Node. It seemed a lifetime since she had stood behind that tapestry and eavesdropped on them. And as she opened the oak door to her new and bizarrely old room, nothing seemed any clearer now than when she had heard them talking.


	3. Hogwarts:1973

Disclaimer: Not mine. 

A/N: This is where the changes to the plot begin occurring!

Hogwarts: 1973

The reception Hermione received from the girls of her new year nearly froze her as she stepped across the threshold. Two of the girls pointedly turned away from her as they talked on their beds, and her bed was the farthest in the corner, tucked out of sight from most of them with the curtains still drawn.

An old and familiar loneliness settled in her chest. Intellectual, insecure and intimidating, Hermione had never had many friends. And few of them had been female. But it was still a school, and girls were still girls. Worse, these girls were thirteen, at the height of their careers in Petty Gossip and the Art of Exclusion. She wondered that she had skipped that stage, but between Harry and reading, there had never seemed to be time. Without a word or a glance for any of them, she went to her bed, drew the curtains, and settled down in front of the trunk she assumed the house-elves had set there for her.

It was full of school clothing, all the right size, and even a pair of dress robes- although they were nothing like the ones she owned- would own?- and all of the books she would need for her third-year classes were there. Arithmancy and Ancient Runes were apparently her Dumbledore-chosen extra classes. She smiled. Even in the past, he was omniscient. She closed the lid after pulling out a pair of pajamas and dressed. It was after she slipped the last button into its hole that she turned around and opened the curtains to find herself the study of her roommates, many who hastily turned away as the red curtains flipped back.

"Lily Evans," Lily introduced herself from the bed next to Hermione's.

"Hermione Granger."

"I know. They announced your name at the Sorting." Pause. "We've never had a transfer here before. What made you switch?"

"Mum and Dad decided I was old enough to handle myself abroad. And Hogwarts is supposed to be so much better than American schools."

"Are you really American? You don't sound it."

"No. I was born in Aylesbury," Hermione told the blond girl three beds away. This caused a bout of disinterest, and some of the girls busied themselves once more with readying for bed.

"What classes are you taking?" Lily forayed into conversation again after another long silence.

"Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, plus all the regular classes we have to take."

"So am I!" It was the first genuine spark of interest Hermione had seen from any of them, and she smiled in response. She noticed several of the girls roll their eyes and the remainder turned away, the subject of newcomer becoming completely stale as Lily talked about classes.

"They won't bother you," Lily told her in a low voice, her eyes following Hermione's as she looked at the other girls turning away. "Since you acted like you don't care what they think."

"I don't care what they think," Hermione told her honestly.

Lily gave her a startled look that rapidly turned rueful. "Well- no- I don't suppose you would. You already made your friends."

More silence. But Lily had handed her an opening, so Hermione took it.

"They clearly aren't yours."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because Sirius Black is a prick," one of the other girls interrupted loudly. Turned backs apparently did not mean closed ears. "Trina Bell," she added by way of introduction. The name sounded like a challenge.

"James Potter and Sirius Black believe they can get away with anything," Lily shrugged as she pushed her head through her nightgown.

_Too bad they can_, Hermione thought whimsically, remembering her anger with Harry and Ron that first year when they broke rules to stupidly duel Malfoy.

"And they often can. So it basically just makes them super-arrogant." Lily lowered her voice, leaned closer to Hermione. "Black cheated on Trina over the summer by snogging a sixth-year Hufflepuff."

Hermione winced a little, but had to admit that recklessness with other's feelings was not at all at odds with what she knew of the man. "Understandable. But still…"

Lily nodded. "They're childish and immature. But…I won't hold it against you." She tried to grin as she jerked her head in Trina's direction. "They might."

Hermione struggled not to snort as she observed the two distinctly separate groups of girls glaring at them suspiciously. Childish and immature indeed. But Lily's eyes were sincere, and Hermione could use a good female friend. "Thanks." As she relaxed onto her pillow with a book she released a nearly-inaudible sigh.

_Thirteen-year-old girls_. And her mental voice sounded surprisingly like the impatient tones of her ex-Potions Master.

888

"Thanks for getting up and coming down," Remus said shyly as she joined him at the Gryffindor table. There seemed startlingly few students present, given the size of the feast the night before. In her own time, students were required to eat breakfast- and get their morning mail. She wondered when that rule had come into effect as she buttered her toast.

"I love mornings. My friends at my old school hate them. They can't see straight when they get up in the morning."

"That's Sirius for you," Remus agreed with a laugh.

"'Morning," Sirius and James grunted in unison as they arrived, just five minutes before class.

"You nearly missed your schedules," Remus hissed, much like a disapproving mother. "I had to get them for you." He slid the sheets over to them.

"Double Potions with the Slytherins on Mondays and Wednesdays!" Sirius yelped, sloshing coffee all down his front. Glaring at the burning liquid running in rivulets down his robes, he muttered a cleaning spell and returned to the object of his horror, eyeing his schedule like a poison.

"As if we needed Mondays to get any worse," James agreed.

"Who teaches Potions?" Hermione asked, glancing at the head table. Something prickled in her gut with the absence of too many faces she had come to rely on, and her missing Potions Master left her with an uneasy sense of foreboding.

"Professor Slughorn. He's okay. Definitely picks favorites. He has a little 'club' that gets together for dinner and brandy every week or something. I don't know why James isn't in." Remus glanced at his friend slurping coffee. "George Potter works at the Ministry- very well connected."

"Indeed. Who _is_ in?" Hermione asked, eyes settling on the round figure that she should have recognized before. Wasn't he always going on to Harry about how much he loved Lily Evans as a student? It was one reason Slughorn was always willing to help Harry… but the roly-poly professor's insistence on creating and maintaining connection might be a good place to start seeking the clarinet. Or was it the clarinetist? "Is getting in always about being well connected? How does he choose?"

"Loads of Slytherins," Sirius muttered. "Invited me to join. Something about 'father's a friend' and 'wouldn't want to exclude me just because the Sorting Hat made a strange decision.' But I'm obviously not interested in breaking bread with the likes of Malfoy."

"Malfoy's in?" Hermione wrinkled her nose.

"See what I mean? You don't want to be in it either. But of course he is- his dad's famous, very wealthy, supposedly a decent chap. His son didn't inherit it though."

Hermione shivered. No, if Draco Malfoy's grandfather was a good man, it had clearly skipped the next two generations.

"Snivellus is in it. Because he's the world's biggest prat," James announced. Lily Evans, only four seats away, glowered at him, backed by the glares of the other girls in their dormitory.

"Because he's excellent at potions," she shot back. "And incredibly smart. And _applies_ himself. Unlike some people I know."

"Snivellus?" Hermione wondered.

"Potter, if you're going to have go at me, why don't we do it somewhere that something

more than a coward's mouth are allowed," said a cold voice. Hermione's back automatically straightened at the sound. It was younger, undeniably less menacing, but it was still he, and the ringing cold in his voice froze her bread halfway to her mouth for an instant.

"Snape?" As soon as she recovered movement, Hermione spun in her seat to face a thirteen-year-old Snape, hair tied back at the nape of his neck, wearing a shadow of the sneer that would become his permanent expression as a professor, one hand casually thrust into his pocket, holding a wand.

"Have we met?" he asked icily.

"No," she floundered, "I'm the transfer student."

"I know who you are. Yet one more lost to Gryffindor." He turned to James, ignoring her.

"Clearly your reputation precedes you if she already knows who you are," James replied with an easy leer. "You should be flattered than anyone would take the time to learn and remember your ugly face."

Snape's jaw tightened, as did the fingers clutching his wand, but a hand clapped on his shoulder and a flint-faced boy with hard eyes was standing behind him.

"Trouble?" The word seemed to glide ice cold and steel bright over the table, begging the affirmative answer to the question. Snape had visibly flinched at the touch, and James was glowering. Sirius was leaning forward, hatred bright in his eyes, looking more than ready to find an excuse to hex Snape into next week. Remus shifted uncomfortably. Peter was watching, an eager, greedy and spiteful look glittering in his eyes. The seats around them had gone still to watch the confrontation. No matter how often it happened, it was popular entertainment to watch a Snape and Potter fight.

"They threatening you, Sev?"

"No, Les." The boy's voice was even, in spite of his fear and dislike of the other.

"Good. Don't damage him." Les cuffed Severus in a none-too-friendly way on the ear, but his words were clearly addressed to James. "I need someone to do my homework."

"Don't worry. All work and no play make Snivellus a dull boy indeed," Sirius returned. "We're just…playing." Les laughed, striding away to join his silently watching housemates.

Snape did not turn to see his second tormentor go, but narrowed his eyes at James. "Well Potter. Play, is it?"

"Name your challenge, Snivelly."

"The Forbidden Forest. We each have to bring out a pint of thestral blood." He smiled. There were gasps, and Hermione could have sworn that all four tables bent towards them, heads inclined to listen. Remus was shaking his head violently.

"What? What kind of blood?" James looked completely non-plussed.

"Thestral." The smile on Snape's face widened cruelly. "What, Potter, you can't see thestrals?"

"Enough, Snape," Remus warned. Snape ignored him.

"What're thestrals?" James demanded.

"Ohhhh. But of course. Perfect little Potter's life is so wonderful he's never even witnessed death," Snape's voice trilled high and mocking before dropping to a tone ugly and sinister. "You can't play with the big kids unless you know the game, Potter." Snape withdrew to the Slytherin table to uproarious laughter, some cheers and modest backslapping from his peers. He took his place between two willowy girls with dark hair, reaching for food.

"That was unpleasant." Hermione had scooted down the bench to sit next to Lily. The other girls arched an eyebrow.

"They do it all the time. The teachers even ignore it now until it gets out of hand. If they had agreed to go to the Forbidden Forest, someone would have stopped them. But since it was just words…" she shrugged expressively.

Hermione shivered and went back to her breakfast, but the incident seemed to have settled in her stomach like a lump of porridge, and she pushed her eggs back and forth on her plate. James, and even Sirius, had seemed a bit…cruel…about Snape.

She remembered hearing people say, _"You're just like James…"_ to Harry. Even Sirius had said it. And she remembered, horribly, Snape's inhuman rage towards Sirius Black in the Shrieking Shack and when he had escaped from Flitwick's office…and the fact that one day before they graduated, Sirius would send Snape after Remus and nearly kill him…

And this James Potter had just done something Harry would never do. Harry had never deliberately provoked Malfoy like that, and had never been so pointlessly mean. Temperamental, yes, fragile, sometimes. Cruel? Never. And the look on Sirius' face…

"Come on. History of Magic first," James broke her reverie. Hermione stood with some reluctance, reflecting on Trina's, and indeed, all her roommates', bitterness the night before in a slightly new light.

888

"It was amazing- she completely fixed my potion, like that," James was telling them enthusiastically after Potions that afternoon. Hermione smiled, no embarrassment evident at the praise. She had long ago schooled herself not to color when Ron or Harry extolled her intelligence extravagantly. Within thirty minutes, she would be back to being a bore because she didn't like Quidditch.

Hermione sighed internally. Sorted into third year. Even in her own time she was often bored in class. This was almost unbearable. Only the task of fixing James' potion had kept her focused and engaged.

That, and watching Snape. Hermione didn't know why her eyes had drawn to him the instant she had entered the dungeon and not pulled away. Perhaps it was that last memory of him standing in the Headmaster's office before she entered the hole, eyes fierce and undeniably passionate, so hot in a face so coldly serene. And today it had been easy to see how he would gain his Mastery…his gift with Potions far surpassed impressive and he adopted an almost ethereal grace when working with them. For the first time, Hermione realized that Snape might actually enjoy his job if it weren't for the students.

"James, I doubt she'll be helping you during exams," Remus was saying sharply. "You should really learn how on your own."

James waved away this piece of advice with one hand. "Potions isn't really my subject. Definitely Transfiguration."

"I'm sure Slughorn will be impressed when you tell him that. 'Potter, I can't imagine why a bright boy like you can't put together a simple sleeping draught.' 'Well Professor,'" Remus' voice slid slightly higher to be James, "'Potions isn't _really_ my subject.' He'll be flattered, I'm sure."

"Can I have help next time too?" Peter asked, almost tripping over himself in his rush to talk to Hermione.

Hermione pursed her lips. It was impossible to like the boy- he looked too much like the man she had faced in the Shrieking Shack that night three years ago, before Voldemort's second rise, before Sirius' death, before…everything. The night that had marked the beginning of the end of her childhood.

"If I don't run the risk of getting caught," she promised quietly, and hurriedly turned her head, pretending to listen to James and Sirius argue to avoid being drawn into conversation.

"Why don't you like Peter?" Sirius asked her quietly, catching her arm and holding her back as James, Peter and Remus hurried on to dinner, now discussing the coming Quidditch tryouts.

"What makes you think I don't?"

Sirius arched an eyebrow. "Because your jaw tenses every single time you look at him, and there's something else in your eyes- you detest him. I'd almost say you despise him, but why?"

Hermione looked at the stone floor. "It's a long story, and one I'm not inclined to tell. But please believe that I have a good reason, and that my opinion is not going to change."

"That seems a little closed-minded," Sirius defended his friend. Hermione tried to stifle the urge to laugh. The first time she had seen the two in a room together, Sirius was ready and pleased to kill Pettigrew. _And he will be again_, she thought dismally. "I admit that he's off-putting when you first meet him, but you get used to it, and he can be a lot of fun. If you don't like Peter just because he's not talented like you are-"

"That has nothing to do with it." Her quashed laugh evaporated and the coldness in her voice told Sirius that he had hit on something that ran far deeper than he had given her credit for. "If I disliked those less intelligent and talented than I, I would have very few friends." Sirius conceded this with a low laugh. "It has nothing to do with his ability- or lack thereof- regarding magic."

"Sure," Sirius replied quickly, "I'm sorry- I didn't realize, I thought you might-"

"I am not so shallow as all that, Sirius Black," she said, and though the words were in earnest, her voice was light and forgiving and Sirius wisely dropped it.

They entered the Great Hall, and Hermione spotted Lily Evans, seated alone and absorbed in a book. "Look," she told Sirius, "I'll catch you later. I want to talk to Lily."

"All right," Sirius agreed affably, then muttered, "Why?" under his breath as he slumped next to James.

"Hey," Lily greeted her, closing the book slightly.

"Hi," Hermione started, a little uncomfortable. "Am I interrupting? If you're studying-"

"No it's fine, I'm not all that busy." Lily cocked her head curiously. "Why?"

"I really- this is going to sound strange, but- I wanted to ask you about James."

"Yeah?" She looked surprised, then shrugged. "I certainly don't know much, and definitely don't care to."

Hermione took a deep breath and decided to jump right in. "James and Snape-"

"Those two!" Lily interrupted with a snort. "Prancing about like they alone uphold a thousand years of honored house-rivalry. They met in Diagon Alley right before their first year and it was hate at first sight. And they're both extremely smart and, unfortunately, very powerful. For children," she amended.

"But…James is just so mean to him…"

"What do you expect? That the Slytherins always start it?"

_Malfoy always does,_ Hermione thought, and promptly shelved that answer. "I guess- I've heard a little of their reputation."

"Being a Gryffindor hardly means being a saint, especially if you're a 'Marauder'- do you know that's what they call themselves? James almost always provokes Snape, and often gets away with it. Though sometimes there are some nasty hexes involved."

"Why won't James just leave him alone?" _As Harry would do._

Lily snorted with laughter, nearly dropping her forkful of mashed potatoes. "Are you kidding? Waste an alone, outcast, perfect target? That's not Potter's style."

Hermione frowned. Lily's bitterness towards James was unexpected, and disturbing. Almost as distressing as the latter's evident willingness to torture Snape at whim. She had always pictured a happy couple together…rather like, well, her and Ron, she supposed, now that he was done with this ridiculous Lavender business. Fights occasionally, perhaps, but not this. Lily's violent dislike was not what she expected, and probably something that Harry would find… disquieting at the very least.

But there were some things about James that weren't admirable at all in and of themselves. His father's spitting image Harry might be physically, but their personalities seemed completely opposite. She could not imagine Harry so deliberately taunting Malfoy. And speaking of which-

"You're going to come watch me try out for Quidditch, right Hermione?" James slung one leg over the bench and sat down facing her. Hostility radiated from Lily in waves, and James seemed awkward as he added:

"You're welcome too, Evans."

"I wouldn't watch you play if you were trying out for the Canons," she sniffed, opening her book again. James blushed a little and mumbled something about talking to Sirius before getting up and moving off. Another bout of homesickness lanced through her abdomen. It had only been that year that she had watched Ron try out for Harry again.

"You okay?" Lily asked, frowning at her. Hermione pulled a smile from muscle memory and replied:

"Of course. Just a little, you know, missing people."

"Sure. You're going to go?" Lily asked.

"To Quidditch? Yes. They're my friends. The first ones I made here. And I should. And it will be fun." She was looking for the fastest way not to explain herself, so she pointed at the book in Lily's lap and asked, "What are you reading?"

"Something on Arithmancy, written by Professor Derivitiv, the teacher here before Vector." Hermione scooted closer to read over her shoulder. Lily shook her head, but it was in amusement, not annoyance, and there was an approving smile on her face.

888

"You knew it was in the bag," Sirius accused James, punching his shoulder once more as they walked from the Quidditch pitch. Ludo had grudgingly admitted that while James was hardly female, he had been much better than any of the other thirty-three contestants for the position on the house team. Everyone had turned out to watch- or to try. It seemed that everyone who had ever touched a broomstick wanted to play. Hermione was willing to wager that even she could have topped one or two of the hopeful first years.

"Yeah, but this way I got to prove it in front of everyone," James said, grinning. "Now watch someone cry favoritism. I was clearly the king there, right?"

"Right mate. Nothing to worry about, just like I promised you."

"Cakes in the common room?" Remus interrupted hopefully.

"Last one there's a rotten egg!" James roared and started towards the castle at a sprint, neck-in-neck with Sirius, his broomstick slung over his shoulder. Remus and Peter were in swift pursuit and Hermione shook her head. She was, without a doubt, the pokiest rotten egg they had ever had.

She stopped halfway across the grounds to look at the Whomping Willow in the dying sunlight. The Forbidden Forest was its usual mass of evergreen- with brilliant patches of red and gold springing into the autumn air around the edges where the darker trees made way for their younger cousins and the lawn met the underbrush.

The tide of loneliness in her swelled with the sound of the lake lapping over already rounded stones, and…she stopped still, ears listening.

For faintly, stringing across the wind in irregular intervals, came the clear, winding sound of a clarinet.

888

Hermione hurtled over the undergrowth, thrusting branches aside as she pushed through briars and scratched her arms on bracken. She halted, panting in the middle of a tiny wedge-shaped clearing, listening.

There. She swung her head slowly. It was growing louder. Just a little, and slightly more consistent in its sound… The sound was pure and light, and seemed almost virtuosic in quality…

She started towards it again, eagerly shoving obstacles out of her way, it was getting louder-

-until very suddenly, it stopped. In the silence, she heard the branch under her landing foot snap and she cursed herself roundly. Crashing through trees like a terrified child running from a bogeyman- had she expected the musician not to hear her? Or run? It was clearly not a condoned activity if they were out here during the evening to practice.

She waited, barely breathing. Perhaps, if she was lucky, they would start again. If she waited long enough…

But the sound did not resume, and as the minutes slid from one to five to fifteen, she sighed, resigned to having lost what she had been looking for.

She glanced at where the dying sunlight was still penetrating the trees and groaned softly as she tramped towards it. She was no more than fifty feet from the edge of the forest. She could have run in the safety and relative quiet of the lawn to her target, instead of alerting everything in the forest to her presence, and driving away the object of her search.

When she reached the lawn, she waited again for someone else to emerge from the dark trees. But once again the seconds slipped by and no one else appeared.

Disgusted with her lack of sense in her detective work, Hermione started back to the castle. So, the clarinet and its player were here, she was surprised at the relief that settled over her. Her mission was indeed to take place at Hogwarts. Now the only problem remained as to who it might be.

Professor Slughorn had clearly indicated this morning how pleased he was with her highly advanced abilities in Potions. Lily had said that Snape was one of his favorites because of his abilities, and she already knew Slughorn was susceptible to flattery. Perhaps the professor would help her.

888

Snape slipped into his room, leaning back against the door as he closed it, adrenaline slowing its furious pump into his blood as he let out a long breath. That had been entirely too close. Too many wizards and witches passionately disliked and feared music, the Ministry's strictures the harsh measures of a frightened populace. Whoever had been out there tonight had clearly been seeking him. He was lucky that they were so clumsy.

His relief was short-lived. As he opened his eyes, he found himself staring into two identical dark gazes, belonging to his twin cousins, sitting on his bed, grim sets to their mouths.

"You almost got caught, didn't you?" one asked. Severus drew another breath for a heavy sigh, caught the arched eyebrow of his other cousin, and let it out softly.

"It wasn't that close."

"That explains why you came tearing through the Common Room like a bat out of hell, doesn't it? You almost got caught."

"There was someone out in the Forbidden Forest," he scowled at them. "That's all. And they were so loud, it didn't matter anyway. I heard them coming a mile off."

"Cuz…" He stiffened. He had always hated the pet appellation, emphasizing his younger age. His older cousin sighed. He was so delicate, a balance of pride and calloused carelessness, his father's fist aging him well in advance of his years.

"Severus," the girl changed tacks, "you've got to be more careful than that. Forget the authorities. If Mum finds out-"

"Yours or mine?" he snorted.

"_Either_," she pressed firmly. "Aunt Eileen'll go spare on us if she finds out you're playing."

"Kass, she won't," he replied, running a velvet cloth through his bell, cleaning it.

"She will if you're reported!" Kassandra snapped, black eyes flashing. Her twin signaled her for silence, and leaned towards their young cousin.

"Severus, just remember to be careful." His scornful glance darted her way and she pursed her lips. "You have obviously not been as cautious as you should. And you don't have to practice everyday. Take a break. Practice every other day instead."

Severus merely glowered at her. "I like playing daily." He brightened as he fished the marble he had been given by Professor McGonagall for extra Transfiguration homework out of his pocket. "And today I figured out how to transform this into a bowl."

Kassandra opened her mouth to object, but her sister once more fluttered her fingers to still her and nodded to Severus, encouraging him. He received little enough attention for his accomplishments- his father furious at his magical ability, his mother critical of his consistently poor marks in Flitwick's and McGonagall's classes. Severus reattached bell and mouthpiece to the body of the clarinet, absently waved his wand to lock the door, cast a Silencing Charm in the next breath and lifted the instrument to his thin lips.

Both twins glanced at the door and the fireplace nervously, but Severus' eyes had focused on a single point, the shiny black button resting on his dull ebony duvet, and he began to play.

A short, low monotone string of notes flattened the button further, widening it into a bottom, followed by a slow scale upwards, molding the button into higher and thinner sides as he played, fingers touching each key in succession. As the last note petered out, the bowl assumed its final shape, and he blinked, tore his eyes from his accomplishment and looked at his cousins proudly. They gave him smiles, then glanced meaningfully at each other.

"If I could play in McGonagall's class, she couldn't give me extra homework," he said, mouth twisting with displeasure as he gazed at the perfectly transfigured bowl. Kassandra waved her wand, her _"Finite Incantantum!"_ releasing his hurried wards as he took apart his instrument and stored it under his bed.

"Severus, watch yourself, all right?" His cousin touched his shoulder, her smile slight and gentle.

"Yes, Kly," he replied dutifully. His mother had ordered him to mind them in his first year, and the order still stood. They were two years his senior with standing of their own in Slytherin's mangled, shifting hierarchy.

He reflected with some bitterness as they left that even the Zabini twins, daughters of one of Britain's most influential wizards and powerful businessmen, could not protect their awkward, intelligent, withdrawn cousin. Their allies kept an aloof eye on him, and had saved him from more brutal scrapes, but a Slytherin who could not hold his own was an impossible weakness, and so Severus had learned to forge his own path, with benefactors, but no friends, his cold countenance and formidable spate of knowledge his surest protection against anything worse than a few taunts.

Except from Black and Potter. But at least Slytherin House stood at his back against the arrogant Gryffindors, all of them ready to assist in beating the boys. His rivalry with them had perversely raised his own house standing, especially his pitched battles with the blood traitor Black, who had been long expected to join the ranks of his forebears in Slytherin's den.

He turned to glower at his transfigured bowl. He would be able to present it to McGonagall tomorrow, but unable to duplicate the spell she had taught them, he could only expect more disappointed head-shaking from the stern Deputy Headmistress and superior smirks from Slytherin and Gryffidnor classmates alike.


	4. Echoes of a Clarinet

Disclaimer: Not mine. 

Echoes of a Clarinet

Hermione impatiently watched the clock tick through Potions class. Having easily completed the assignment in the first forty-five minutes, she played with her quill, turning it over and over in her hands as she tried to compose how she would ask her questions of Professor Slughorn as she watched Snape out of the corner of her eye. Her attempt to order her mind into thinking about business did nothing for her, and she kept glancing over at him as he moved like liquid about his cauldron, wondering if she could get him to speak to her- even on a purely intellectual plane. His brilliance had been locked behind the coldly sarcastic, remote manners of a professor who hated her for six years- and the attraction of tapping into the mind of the boy, though doubtless immature and only partially developed, was almost irresistible.

Her quiet observation of him over the past week had painted a picture of a life not unlike the one she knew her professor led. Snape-the-boy existed in a world of constantly shifting allegiances, his place carved by power, or connection, or intelligence- probably all three. But he had few friends, only two twins who looked to be nearer Hermione's age than his. Slytherin House seemed composed of students more intelligent and more vicious than the Slytherins of her own time – Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini were the only two in her class who had shown signs of interest in academia, though Malfoy seemed…distracted…this year. But this Slytherin was fast-paced and competitive, purists to their core and fiercely defensive of their house reputation. Small wonder they had taken the House Cup for years prior to her arrival in the future.

As Hermione mused on Snape in particular and Slytherins in general, the hands overhead finally clicked into the correct position. The rest of the class hastily shoved their books into their backpacks, and Hermione shyly approached the teacher's desk, heart fluttering faster in nervousness. In six years at Hogwarts, nothing had induced her to speak of her talent, and now, after a single week, she was debating the best way to discuss the subject in a setting where it seemed to be almost non-existent.

She had reviewed all she knew about Slughorn and decided that the only way she was sure to get an answer from him was to feign as much ignorance, awe and helplessness she possibly could and maintain credibility.

"Don't wait for me," she muttered to Remus as she passed him. "I have a question for Professor Slughorn, I'll see you guys at dinner."

"'Kay," he agreed amiably.

The classroom emptied, James and Sirius shooting her strange looks as Remus ushered them out, leaving the professor flicking his wand to erase the blackboard and restore various un-used items that students had forgotten to put away to his cabinet. Hermione snorted at the idea of Snape allowing anyone to leave the room without properly returning their supplies. But, she already knew that Slughorn was lax.

"Professor?" she started.

He jumped slightly- it was quite clear that he had not seen her. But he beamed at her anyway. "Miss Granger! What can I do for you, young lady?" He barely paused before saying, "Is this about my little dinners? I can assure you that I absolutely wish to extend an invitation to both you and Miss Evans."

For a moment, Hermione was caught completely wrong-footed. Dinners? What…? Ah yes. The Slug Club. She was a member in her own time as well. "Thank you, professor," she replied, trying to sound flattered rather than inconvenienced. "But I actually had a different question for you?"

"Fire away. Can't imagine a student I would rather be helping," he replied affably, sitting down comfortably at his desk.

"Professor, I was wondering, I read the treatise _Magical Properties of Music and Asphodel _by Suriana Sylvet, and I wanted to know if you had ever worked on practical applications of music and potions with a student before. I thought I heard- what is it?"

She stopped. Slughorn had withdrawn from her instantly, giving her a look of horror at the sound of the words 'practical application.' When he spoke again, his voice was harsher than she had ever heard it. "You must never, ever, mention that again Miss Granger."

Her heart sank. She hadn't even really reached the crux of the question yet. "I'm sorry, sir. What-?"

"Students _do not_ study music, certainly not with an eye towards using it with magic. I would have thought in America they would have at least taught you that much." He gave her a stern look. "Do you know nothing of the rise and fall of Grindelwald?"

"I know that Professor Dumbledore defeated him, sir," Hermione replied automatically, mind whirring ahead, trying to anticipate the next turn of conversation. Where could this be going?

Slughorn was up and pacing in front of her now, chest puffed out to make himself more intimidating. Compared to the man who would replace him, Hermione thought the rotund wizard's act failed miserably. "The Dark Wizard Grindelwald rose to power using a cadre of Assassins controlled by music, young lady. No one knows the secret of how, or what music, but it was determined that music- already carefully monitored throughout Europe, would be banned as a subject for secondary school studies after the Headmaster killed him, and that anyone caught learning how to manipulate any living thing through an instrument would earn themselves a one-way ticket to Azkaban. It is hardly a force to be trifled with, and no one, I repeat- _no one-_ at Hogwarts knows anything about it."

"No, sir, clearly not. I never would have thought of it if I hadn't read the essay," she beat a hasty retreat, her stomach tightening. She reached for her bag, ready to leave rapidly, when his voice, unnaturally sharp, stopped her again.

"Where did you find this essay?"

"Erm, the library?" she guessed, her back still to him. Her perception of Slughorn as a mild and essentially harmless fool was tempered by the fact that he was a Slytherin, and still waters occasionally ran deep. He could be an Occlumens, like others of his house, and this part of her lie had not been carefully crafted. She was sorry she had asked – she remembered that Harry had had no luck talking Slughorn out of the memory that would help him and the headmaster when he had stayed after class…

"What section?" he was asking, still wary.

"Potions," she answered. "It's in a book…a collection of essays written about one hundred years ago."

"Do you remember the name?"

"No, sir," she lied, facing him. He frowned, his round face screwed up in concentration, then nodded to her in dismissal. As she reached the door he boomed her name.

"Miss Granger!" She turned, and found herself before her jovial, easily-flattered and easy-going professor once more. Gone was the strict lecturer from moments ago. "I have a dinner in two weeks time. We have few enough Gryffindors to grace our table. Do bring your charming friend Miss Evans with you."

"Yes, sir," Hermione responded, sighing as she slipped into the hall, grateful that his natural fearfulness and live-and-let-live laxity had allowed her slide out without further prevaricating.

No answers to her questions, only reinforcement of the knowledge that music and magic were not allowed to mix, though the intensity of the ban surprised her. Why had Dumbledore sent her back here? What could she learn if music was banned, and carried the threat of a sentence in prison?

_Grindelwald._ The Dark Wizard had fallen in 1945…just in time for a young, freshly graduated Tom Riddle to pick up the pieces of research and magic for himself.

Her head hurt as she leaned against the cold dungeon stones. Nothing was easy, and all she had earned today was the thrilling prospect of sitting through a Slughorn dinner with a bunch of Slytherins.

888

"Look at this," James was pointing a the _Daily Prophet_ at dinner, the Dark Mark winking at them from the page like an overblown and grotesque Halloween decoration.

"Another witch found missing, husband and children brutally murdered in their house in the Orkney Isles…" Hermione scanned the article and blanched.

"No one knows where they go?"

"Some think the Imperius prompts them to kill their families and vanish."

"Scary." Remus swallowed his pumpkin juice.

"Says right here that all of the witches and wizards who have disappeared in the last six months all have Masteries in at least one if not more of the magical arts." Hermione was still perusing.

"Which Masteries?"

"They vary- Cursebreaking, Potions, Transfiguration, Dark Arts and their Defense, etc." Hermione folded the paper.

"The Dark Lord is stealing Britain's intellectuals," James laughed.

"One intellectual who can create a draught of poison that can be released into the air and breathed in by thousands at once is far more dangerous than a brute who kills one at a time," Hermione snapped. James sobered instantly, staring at her.

"Can they do that?"

"I don't know." She bleakly remembered the newspapers from her parents' house over the summer. "But Muggles can, so we probably can too."

Hermione glanced up at Peter as he squeaked, looking terrified, and then at Sirius. But the second boy's face was oddly closed, remote and distant.

"Sirius?"

"It's nothing. I just… Wizards who think like that make me sick," he said vehemently. James and Remus glanced up sympathetically, and Hermione remembered a much older Sirius gesturing to a huge tapestry titled _The Ancient and Most Noble House of Black_ pocketed with burned-out names- and his scathing description of his family.

"They might just be killing them," Lily said, her dislike of the boys set aside in favor of peering over the article.

"Probably not. If they were going to be killed, why not leave the bodies in the houses with the others who die there?"

"To make us wonder and waste our time," Lily replied immediately. "The Ministry knows that they have to spend resources searching as long as there's a possibility any of the missing might still be alive-"

"How many missing are there?"

"Eighteen, including this one," Remus read aloud.

"That's a lot of experts," Sirius said grimly.

888

"They're all musicians," Klytemnestra told her twin, tapping the newspaper on her bed. Kassandra spun from where she was packing her school supplies and whispered hoarsely:

"What?"

"They're all musicians. Father knew Daemon Bloom. He purchased the Stradivarius that had to be smuggled through Luxembourg." Her finger underlined the name, and Kassandra scanned the sentence, her dark eyes narrowing.

"Does Father know the others?"

"Some personally, I think. But all eighteen have bought instruments from him, in disguise or under assumed names. We helped package almost all of them."

"The Dark Lord is hunting musicians?"

"So it would appear." The twins locked eyes, and tensed.

"Severus," Klytemnestra murmured, and almost reflexively, reached beneath her bed to ensure that her viola, warded to be invisible and intangible to anyone without Zabini blood, was still resting in its place. Her fingers brushed the wooden case, savoring the smoothness of the texture, calm seeping directly from the warm wood into her fingertips.

"Kly, that's serious," Kassandra said flatly. "You saw what he did to that button. He's figured out how to manipulate objects with his clarinet – that's too close to the power they fear. It's precisely what we're _not_ supposed to learn how to do."

"I know."

"Can you do it?"

"No," Klytemnestra admitted, running one hand through her waist-length black hair in her age-old habit of agitation. "I haven't really tried, but I don't think I could without intense practice. Can you?"

"No." A long pause, then, "Mum'll slaughter us if she knows that Severus still plays daily. She said as a boy he was virtuosic, but if he continues, he'll end up in prison. And Aunt Eileen doesn't know that he even plays, Mum said it was our uncle's idea…" The girls' lips curled in unison at the mention of their Aunt Eileen's Muggle husband, Tobias. He had compounded the error of being a Muggle by being brutal to his spouse, and the twins had adopted their mother's look of thoroughly pinched disapproval at the mention of his name.

"Father should know about this," Kassandra gestured to the open _Prophet_, and edge fluttering up to touch her hand as her fingers swept over it, the previous subject banked for now.

"He does. He reads it every morning."

"We should send an owl anyway," the girl insisted, shoving the last of her books into her bag and glowering at her History of Magic text. "One more year and I can drop this class," she grunted, pushing it down and zipping her bag closed over the lump.

"I'll write him now." Quill and parchment flew to Klytemnestra's outstretched hand, her wordless command rolling them neatly together as she strode out of the dormitory.

888

Hermione was curled in her chair when she heard, "Oi! Remus! Where're you going?" She twisted from her book, frowning.

Sure enough, the quiet boy was standing in front of his bouncy friends, tattered suitcase in hand. She felt a pang of memory that lodged somewhere beneath her sternum as she recalled the shabby briefcase that he had been seated with in her compartment on the train to Hogwarts her third year. Would his life never be easy?

"Home to visit my mother, Sirius," the boy responded softly.

"Again? But…school just started two weeks ago."

Remus shrugged. "I'm never gone long. I'll be back. But Professor Dumbledore is expecting me now, so I have to go."

"All right." The two boys stepped aside so their friend could pass. Sirius and James exchanged a look as the Fat Lady swung closed on their friend.

"Where does he go?"

"You don't believe that he goes home?" James asked Sirius with some surprise.

"No. I don't. There's something too…regular about it. It's not a random occurrence," Sirius frowned. "Not random at all."

"Maybe he visits her once a month cause he's afraid she'll die one day when he's not there," James argued. "I just wish he would let us come with him. Moral support and all that stuff."

"He has his reasons," Hermione muttered. Neither of them was supposed to hear it. Unfortunately, both did.

"Did he talk to _you_ about it?" Sirius pounced on the question, kneeling next to the armchair where Hermione sat. There was no denying the hope that his question would be answered, but the hurt that his friend would choose to talk to her before him flared bright in his eyes.

"Yeah?" James eagerly seconded his best friend, but without the pain.

"No," she sighed with exasperation tempered with tenderness to ease Sirius' fears of being replaced. "No…it's nothing like that. He hasn't talked to me, just…" In rooting through her fertile mind for an excuse, she recalled yet another scene in the Shrieking Shack, featuring an older, more exhausted Lupin defending the gaunt and broken man they were sure had murdered Harry's parents, telling them that his friends had learned of his lycanthropy just as she had…in their third year. "When he's comfortable and ready, he'll talk about it," she finally finished, swallowing the sudden tears that jerked forward at the memory. If only they hadn't let the rat go. If only Harry had let Sirius kill Wormtail, as he should have done…

"What's going on?" Peter's thin piping voice traveled over to them. Revulsion surged in her so strongly she had to escape, or strangle the thirteen-year-old, and still innocent, child where he stood cowering, as always, slightly behind James.

"Nothing. I'll be in the library," she told them, giving James and Sirius forced smiles. She hurried away, leaving the boys to stare after her.

"Peter, go grab your Care of Magical Creatures essay so we can work on it," Sirius ordered. As Peter raced to his dorm to get his books and parchment, James and Sirius shared a look.

"She really doesn't like him," James sighed.

"No, she really doesn't. I think she knows something," Sirius agreed. "I think she knows a lot that she's not letting on, though I can't imagine what. He's not the only one she reviles. Did you see her curl her lip at Malfoy?"

"It's Malfoy. Don't tell me he doesn't deserve it."

"He does. But she doesn't hate Snivelly, who's an equally evil bastard, if not worse."

"I don't get it," James shook his head.

"Girls," Sirius snorted.

"You wouldn't know a real girl if she strutted buck naked in front of you, Black," Lily Evans snapped contemptuously from her seat by the fire, drawing their attention. "What Hermione does and who she likes is no business of yours."

"Forgive me, oh Lady of the Furies," he mocked. James decided that this conversation had nowhere to spiral but downwards, so he hastily grabbed his friend, mumbled an ignored apology to Lily, and steered Sirius towards the other end of the common room as Peter tumbled down the stairs.

888

Hermione sighed as she reached the library and slumped down at a table near the back of the room. The loathing she felt for Pettigrew seared in her chest, a beast snarling to be released on the hapless child. There was no cure for the image permanently branded on her eyelids: the sniveling man who had begged for his life- and escaped through Harry's wholly misplaced (in retrospect) mercy. But some days…

Her hands ached with the effort of not throttling him, and her mind had hurtled down the many paths of _might-have-beens_… But one could not change the future. Time was not a changing, shifting entity. All that had happened had already taken place in her own time…she repeated the familiar litany, calming the fire Pettigrew unfailingly kindled in her blood.

_All that had happened had already taken place_… And for the first time, Hermione sat bolt upright in her chair, back steel-rod straight as her mind whirled on the paths of implication that had not struck through in the past week. Sirius and Professor Lupin, when they had first met her…they must have remembered her. And Pettigrew. Dumbledore obviously…Snape, clearly…did Lucius Malfoy? Ludo Bagman? How many others would she meet, had she met, did she know? How many adults knew of her time travel? Head spinning, she dropped it forward into her hands, sighing to expel the thoughts skittering like dervishes through the forefront of her mind.

888

"Hey." Severus lifted his head from his essay, quill-tip in his mouth, to see his older cousin standing in the doorway of his dormitory. "Can I come in?"

Klytemnestra was always assiduously respectful of her cousin's privacy. The melancholic boy had arrived at Hogwarts with an almost obsessive desire for seclusion, noted in Slytherin House, not the most physically welcoming of places, for his allergy to others' touch. In his first semester, the twins had swiftly learned that their eleven-year-old relative would allow only them to touch him, and not for too long. Anyone else laying a hand on the boy ended up on the wrong end of several well-known, oft-practiced hexes.

The inclination of the dark head indicated that she should enter, and she did, wrinkling her nose at the piles of crushed and mauled robes that she stepped over and around to reach Severus' bed. "Whose're those?"

He blinked at them and said, "Avery's. Wilkes'. Maybe Rosier's too." He craned his neck a little. "The dark blue robes belong to Rosier. Why?"

"Curious," she replied, amused at his own fastidiousness- all of his robes were neatly piled inside his closed trunk- and his keen observation of those he lived near.

She settled herself cross-legged on his duvet, and he turned to face her politely, black eyes attentive. "How are you?" she asked.

"I am as I have ever been. Cousin, you know I have no grace at Slytherin word games and courtesies. Allow me to at least dispense with them with family. What do you want?"

"Severus- sometimes I genuinely don't want anything from you. Remember that blood runs thicker than water. Did you see the _Prophet _this morning?" Her change of subject cut off any reply he may have made and he simply stared at her. "Voldemort is kidnapping musicians," she continued gently. "Musicians who have your talents. Musicians who can alter nature."

Instantly, his eyes shuttered. "Severus- don't. I'm not here to deliver a lecture." Her voice sharpened, and she took a deep breath. "I was actually just going to warn you- and ask if you minded if I played with you."

It was the wrong thing to say. He twisted away from her savagely. "I don't need a babysitter."

"I don't want to baby sit," she lied. It was, in fact, precisely what she intended to do. Her cousin would not suffer the fate of others if she could help it. And even this Voldemort couldn't be stupid enough to kidnap the daughter of one of Britain's wealthiest men. "Do you still have that bowl you made from a button?"

"No. I handed it in to McGonagall." His mouth curled in displeasure. "Not that it mattered. I still can't do the spell without music."

"But you can do it with music." She jumped hastily on the segue, and took a deep breath. Her sister would kill her if she knew what Klytemnestra was doing. "Teach me."

It took but a moment for his face to shift, the pattern revolving from irritation to distrust to excitement to calculation. The benefits to him could be enormous- and Klytemnestra relied on her cousin's essentially Slytherin nature to conquer his paranoia.

"All right," he agreed. He shoved the essay off his lap, flowing off the bed and onto his knees like a jointed waterfall. His hand came up with apparently nothing- his Disillusioned clarinet case.

"Now?" Klytemnestra asked, surprised. He nodded slowly, mischief starting its delighted dance in his eyes.

"It takes a lot of practice. As your teacher, I recommend we begin at once."

888

In the library, gut twisted and breathing shallow as onslaughts of grief for her new friends and homesickness for her old ones assaulted her, Hermione bit down on the inside of her lip and tried to stifle the tears that pricked at the corners of her eyes.

Hair clenched in both fists, head bowed as her inner turmoil struggled to manifest on her face, she heard it for a second time.

Loneliness vanished as her head shot up, carrying her to her feet in the force of the single, fluid movement. She stood stock still, everything else gone in the face of the music.

Clearer than before, twined round the piping sounds of the clarinet, reverberated the strings of a viola.


	5. Marching Orders

Disclaimer: Not mine. 

Marching Orders

She stood at the edge of the dusty shelves, gazing past the last rows of tomes stretching to the ceiling and the bookcases covered in layers of dust that might not have been disturbed for hundreds of years. But what would have once captured her imagination and excitement now passed her by. The music soared in her veins, thrumming power, and she felt she could hear the breathing of the wood and stone, of the lazy autumn night itself as she stood in the dim book-lined corridors of the library.

It was plaintive, then joyful, solemn followed by bouncy, mellow turned into trills. Did no one else in the silent room hear it? It was the most glorious sound she had encountered for many years, since she stopped taking lessons, sweet and full and rich… though if Professor Slughorn were to be believed, it was blessing that no one else seemed aware of the melody that suffused her being.

She crossed the few steps to the window, willing her breathing to quiet, trying to listen…

The strains of the sound floated to her cleanly as she stood by the lattice. They were coming from the grounds.

Whirling, long curls flying behind her, unruly as ever, Hermione exited the library at a pace barely slower than a run. Without her cloak, without protection and without consideration that in fifteen minutes she would be both out of bounds and out of curfew, Hermione sprinted to the small side door just outside of the doors leading into the Great Hall, unbolted it with hasty, clumsy fingers and hurtled out onto the lawn.

Compelled by Professor Snape's command and drawn by a desire stronger than curiosity- whoever played was someone who would understand her, someone willing to take the risk- starved of companionship for all of her life, Hermione's body guided where her mind and even her ears could not. When the wind whistled to drown the music, her feet knew exactly where to lead her, and she followed the force that tugged at her toes and pulled her unerringly forward.

Unlike her last blundering attempt, Hermione moved stealthily, the music clearer and purer as she approached. For a moment she stood in the shadow of one of the great pines that lined the outer edges of the forest, head thrown back, eyes closed, bathing in the sound. She could feel the crackling stir of magic snapping at the ends of her hair. Whether student or adult, these players were virtuosic, and their skill evoked and stirred to life the magic that surrounded the school. Earth, cool wind, water, damp leaves, thick moss, the wildflowers that carpeted the forest floor and a thousand other smells imprinted themselves in her nose, magic thick, oozing around her like a bee in a stream of honey.

Breaking her self-imposed spell, Hermione started forward again, creeping ever-closer, entering the forest only with extreme care. And drawing close enough, she parted the dangling branches in front of her face to see two silhouetted forms under the trees, neither speaking, fingers flitting over their instruments in improvised time. Hermione's hands curled and rippled over an imaginary harp, its real twin sitting in a room under Gryffindor Tower twenty-three years from now, and her vocal cords ached with suppressing her desire to join the musicians in their practice.

Squinting into the moonlight to keep her body's tangible reaction from betraying her presence, she narrowed her eyes to slits, trying to determine who the players were.

Long, pale fingers flashed over the silver keys of the clarinet, and as the player rocked forward, a shadow slung down to mask his features.

No, not a shadow. Hair. Hermione controlled her instinct to gasp by biting her tongue to clip the sound. That black hair and those hands could only belong to one person. With a clarity that staggered her, she reached for the nearest tree trunk and leaned against it, vividly recalling the searing intensity of Professor Snape's gaze as he had given her this assignment. _"Find the clarinet."_ She had found it. And the player. And, somehow unsurprisingly, it was him.

888

"Remus!" James slid his arm around his friend's slender shoulders, giving him a rough hug at breakfast two mornings later.

"How's your mum?" Sirius asked solicitously from the other side.

"She's, you know, the same as always." Remus did not have to fake the fatigue and listlessness in his voice.

"She's not getting any better?" James sounded genuinely disappointed.

"No, you prat. 'Same as always' usually means exactly that." Sirius swatted James gently on the back of his head. When the other boy batted him back, Sirius ducked, and James' long arm instead clunked against the back of Remus' head, knocking him forward into his plate.

"James, drink your coffee before engaging in fights," Remus muttered, rubbing the back of his head. "Your aim is off."

"Sorry."

"Boys." Lily sniffed disapprovingly. Hermione smiled at her, shaking her head. "What?" Lily demanded, catching the end of the gesture. "They should be being nice to him, not kicking him around."

"Boys are like puppies," Hermione told her, spreading her toast with black raspberry jam. "When they beat each other up, they're having fun. Remus wouldn't want them to make a big deal of his going home. He's worried enough about his mother as it is- they would only make him more anxious if they crowded him with questions and treated him like glass."

"Hmmph." It was clear Lily thought little of this line of reasoning as she dug into her kippers. From the other side of her, Trina narrowed her eyes at Hermione. Shrugging, Hermione scooted down the bench to where Ludo Bagman sat across from the Marauders, now deep in conversation about Quidditch. She squashed her sigh and picked up the paper. Better to listen to convoluted plans to beat Slytherin's game strategy than endure the censure of her dorm mates.

Behind the newspaper, Hermione's eyes turned distant as she focused on her internal object. For two days, she had wrestled with what to do about discovering that Snape was the player she sought. It was clear from the adult Snape's reaction what she _would_ do, and that he would help her, but teenage-Snape seemed, if anything, more surly and withdrawn than her professor. As a Gryffindor outside the Slytherin hierarchy, she was fairly certain that as far as he was concerned, she did not exist.

And there was the matter of the other. The slight frame and long, plaited hair left Hermione reasonably certain that the viola player was female- but the high cheekbone thrown in relief by the moonlight indicated a girl well into puberty. She was slight, but not short…clearly someone older, someone close to her own actual age. But it was certainly no one Hermione knew. And she had not made a plan for a third person. Snape had mentioned only himself, and the Echo.

_If the Echo is a person, perhaps _she_ is the Echo…_ the young woman mused. She quickly shook her head to dispel that thought. Professor Snape had said 'find'. It was unlikely, then, that it would be so easy as all that. And she, too, had had an instrument in her hands. But there was no reason to think that the Echo could _not_ be a human being. Harry was researching Horcruxes and soul-splitting with Professor Dumbledore, after all, so it was not an impossibility that a person might contain a magical anomaly.

"Erm…Hermione?" Pettigrew was poking her shoulder. She slapped his hand away automatically, as if it blazed with an open flame. The hurt in his eyes and pouting lip was all too evident as Sirius raised his eyebrows at her from across the table, but he merely said, "It's time for class. We can't let you sit there all day- James would fail without you take notes for him."

"Right. Sorry." The smile she tried for failed as she looked at Peter, and she quickly dropped her eyes under the cover of picking up her bag. She could feel Lily Evan's eyes on her back, the other girl having observed the awkward exchange, and the puzzled frown on her face followed Hermione out the Great Hall doors.

_I can't, I can't, I must be mad not to be able to act better than this…_ Hermione knew her violent dislike of Peter Pettigrew and automatic, irrepressible reaction to him hardly kept the secret of her odd mission. If anything, it was coming closer and closer to destroying her cover. But in his voice, every time it reached her ears, she could only hear the frantic pleading mumblings of a desperate, balding murderer who had betrayed Harry's parents, two people she was coming to regard as friends of hers in her own right.

Sighing as they filed into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, she settled her bag on the desk she shared with Remus, pulling out her book as usual. As she sat, Severus Snape brushed by her, sitting with his partner, Timothy Wilkes, a pale, slender boy who would have reminded her of Draco Malfoy had his hair not been dark and had he not had the spark of humor in his slate-grey eyes that the Malfoy heir most distinctly lacked.

Snape did not bother to pull his book out of his bag. Shaking his black hair forward to hide his face, he sat slumped at their shared desk, his posture indicating a confident boredom. He had every right to. Never having opened his book in class- by all appearances, he didn't even carry it- he was capable of answering any question presented to him by Professor Torrenwright and could counter in practice any hex, jinx or curse on the first attempt.

Hermione tapped her quill on her desk, contemplating the boy seated two desks up and one over from her. She had to find a way to speak to him, but she had instantly, intimately associated herself with his dearest enemies. Hardly the best speaking terms.

Still, she had done it…and the momentary intensity her professor's eyes had held in Dumbledore's office buoyed her assurance that it would not be a miserable experience for them. Her resolve stiffened, she put the spinning threads of what she could say to him in the back of her mind and bent her mind towards listening to her professor.

888

After lunch, Hermione screwed up her courage. _Diffindo_ had worked on several occasions for emergency warnings and conferences between classes. So she would simply split his bag down the middle and pounce while he cleaned up.

"Where're you going?" James asked, bewildered as Hermione stood halfway through a bite.

"Just remembered something," she lied to him around a mouth of hot pasty. "I need to check the library for my History of Magic essay."

"Would it kill you to let that wait until this evening?" Sirius asked, but his black eyes glittered with warmth as Hermione shook her head. She had easily gained the affectionate 'Know-It-All' title in these first two and a half weeks, and Sirius had no qualms about letting her check his essays for class.

"See you in a bit." She stuffed a last bite in her mouth as she swung her bag over her shoulder. Snape was just leaving the hall in the company of the boy who seemed to both control and protect him, Rodolphus Lestrange. She watched their not-quite-easy interaction for a moment, a cautious relationship, growing more comfortable, between allies whose loyalty and pecking order had been long-since established.

She hurried out after him, only to be stopped by a long arm that ended in pale, flawlessly manicured fingers right outside the doors. The hand tightened on her upper arm and spun her to look into one of the faces of her nightmares.

Lucius Malfoy. And behind him, leering slightly, the would-be executioner of Buckbeak, Walden Macnair.

Her lip curled instinctively as her other hand crossed her body to seize the wand hidden in her robes.

"None of that." He released her arm with a warm smile, throwing up his hands in the universal gesture of surrender. Her right hand wrapped around her wand anyway as she threw a quick glance over her shoulder. Snape was soon to be out of range of her hex.

"I was headed somewhere," she told Malfoy icily. "Is it your habit to stop people cold without so much as a by-your-leave?"

Macnair chuckled from his position of relative safety behind his friend. "Feisty, Luci. You might want to be careful with this one."

But Lucius merely smiled at her. It softened all of the angular planes of his face, and the sparkling grey eyes that his son would inherit seemed to focus on her alone as she looked at him. Hermione felt her face reddening and twisted slightly to escape his gaze. Had she not known what he was, what he would become, she would have found him quite charming. The delicate attention he was paying to her face- and only her face- was difficult to shut out. As it was, she could not keep her body from heating in response to the kind of appraisal that no boy in her own time had ever given her.

"I apologize." He made a courtly little bow to her. "You are always in a hurry, and always in such company as would hex me rather than look at me that I simply had to seize my chance." Macnair guffawed behind him.

"All puns intended," Hermione remarked, trying to keep her voice chilled as her intellect clamored with her instincts.

"Of course. You are of age to visit Hogsmeade, yes?"

"Yes," she replied hesitantly.

"Excellent. Would you care to come with me on our first weekend?"

Hermione stared at him. Under the shock ran a sudden desire to burst into laughter. Did this memory rankle in the older Malfoy twenty years from now? Inviting his son's Muggle-born rival on a date? "Go with you. To Hogsmeade?" She snorted and tossed her hair back, ready to deny him-

"Malfoy." Hermione felt three people at her back, and relaxed a breath she didn't know she had been holding. Sirius, James and Remus stood solidly behind her, and Sirius' wand was out and pointing past her shoulder at Malfoy. James' was at Macnair. Remus' wasn't out, but his hand pressed gently against the small of her back, offering her comfort.

"What's going on, Hermione?" he asked.

"Nothing. Malfoy just asked me to Hogsmeade." She knew there was a lingering tone of wonder in her voice, borne not of flattery but of her sheer inability to believe what she had heard.

Sirius' wand shook with anger, but there was nothing wavering about his voice as he said stiffly, "Hands off, Malfoy. She's allergic to scum."

Malfoy laughed easily, a sound both like and unlike the sneering of his son, and backed away. Without acknowledging either the boys or their wands, he said, "When you decide to think for yourself, come give me your answer." Macnair shot her a cocky grin and a wink as he followed his friend.

As they rounded the corner, Walden frowned at Lucius. "You gave up easily."

The charm had left Lucius' features, casting them back into their customary mold of cold, patrician beauty. "She is four years younger than I am, and friends with _those_ Gryffindors as well as being a Gryffindor herself. I hardly expected her to say yes. But, one should always at least attempt the easy route. I will simply have to find another road to what my master wants."

"Are you sure she's the one?"

"_He_ is," Lucius told his friend in a clipped tone, dropping his voice after flicking his wand to ensure no one was within listening distance. "He finds it entirely too convenient that the beginning of his investigation of the Echo and this girl's arrival at Hogwarts coincided so neatly. Couple that with the recent surges of distortion in the magical field around the school and he's sure a powerful student is causing the problems by playing music. She is powerful, Avery says she completes all class assignments dead perfect in no time at all, and she may well play music- who else would who just arrived this year? A first year? It takes guts to flout wizarding law, and she attempts- and succeeds occasionally- in keeping Sirius Black in check. She's got guts. Who else would it be?"

"Mmmhmm. Good points, " Walden drawled lazily and rolled his eyes at his friend. "But face it, what _you_ like about it is that she's a looker."

Lucius' mouth twitched. "I won't lie to you about that. It is pleasant to have such an… interesting prize to pursue."

"What's your next strategy?"

"I've given her a challenge. She might decide to take me up on it. But, if she doesn't…" Lucius smiled ferally, his eyes diamond hard, his teeth barely showing through taut lips. "As our master has taught us, there's more than one way to skin a Mudblood."

888

"Stay away from him," James warned her savagely after he and Sirius had finished roundly abusing Malfoy for his forwardness. Hermione stopped in the middle of the corridor. The boys continued two steps more, like water flowing around an entrenched log, then halted, turning to face her.

"You think? James Harry Potter, I can think a few things through on my own," she snarled. Her throat constricted around the name, anger, confusion and the faint stab of missing Harry and Ron making her voice squeak at the end.

"Of course," Remus hushed her quickly as two students passing by threw them curious looks.

"That's not what he meant at all." Sirius rushed to his friend's defense. "He just, you don't know Malfoy like we do-"

_Bet me_, she thought dangerously, and knew some of the thought flashed in her eyes, because Sirius silenced instantly. Flip and arrogant though they could be, none of the Marauders wanted to see their newest friend's undeniably powerful fury unleashed on them.

"Hermione? I wasn't- I didn't mean you can't see for yourself what kind of person he is, but Malfoy is very used to getting his own way, and-"

"He'll go to any length to secure it. I know," Hermione finished the sentence softly. _Like father, like son?_ she wondered. _No. My Malfoy never acted like that. A prat, yes, spoiled, yes. Oozing charm while lying through his teeth? Not his style. Effective, but not his style._

"You're sure you're all right?" Remus' light brown eyes were staring into hers, concerned etched into the lines on his forehead. "He didn't touch you at all?"

"No," Hermione smiled to reassure him. "No, he just invited me to Hogsmeade. But he didn't mean it in the normal way a guy invites a girl to go with him…"

"I can promise you he did," Sirius spat. "Listen, Hermione, no matter _what_ anyone says about me and 'callous heartbreak', which I'm sure you've heard at least a dozen times from Trina, I am nothing compared with Lucius Malfoy. He thinks you're pretty- and he'll bed you if you let him."

Hermione stared at him, her previous thoughts forgotten. As far as this Hogwarts knew, she was not the seventeen years of her actual age, but the thirteen that Dumbledore had told them. Her stomach roiled as if she was going to be sick right there in the hallway.

"But, I'm only-"

"Thirteen. Doesn't matter," Sirius continued harshly. "Rumor has it that Malfoy has slept with every girl in Slytherin fourth year and up, and most of the seventh year girls in every house. Don't ever let him near you."

"And if he does come try again, tell us. Even a seventh year can't fight all of us," Remus said firmly.

Hermione felt a sudden rush of affection followed by yet another bitter-sweet reminder of Harry and Ron. Sirius and James were all fire and action, even their wild hand motions and fidgeting stances reminded her of Ron. Remus stood next to her, hand on her arm, offering her quiet support and a core of strength that had not quite settled in his more flamboyant friends, much as Harry had learned to do. And even Peter…

To her surprise, he was giving her an honestly concerned look so like one of Neville's that she could forget his traitorous future for an instant, and for the first time, reached to touch his arm, the stretching of her mouth genuine. They had closed around her protectively, and she had, for the first time, an inkling of the loss Remus would endure with the deaths and betrayals of these friends.

"Thank you," she whispered, and found her lower eyelids flush with tears. She bowed her head to hastily wipe them away. Harry and Ron hadn't quite figured out crying girls yet, and she couldn't imagine these boys would be any less uncomfortable with them.

"We couldn't let that pig touch you, Hermione," James was saying earnestly. "Never."

"Speaking of never," Sirius turned the conversation deftly, sensing it was time to move on, "we'll never win the House Cup if we're all late to Potions this afternoon."

They glanced at the clock hanging overhead in the hall, Hermione gasped at the time, and the five of them pelted in the direction of the dungeons.

888

Derailed by Lucius Malfoy in her earlier attempt, Hermione aimed her wand carefully at Snape's bag. Quidditch practice was always right after Potions for the Gryffindor team, and she knew she could count on the boys to take off without her if she showed any signs of dawdling to ask questions. Snape was headed down one passage while the end of Peter's robe disappeared around the other…

"_Diffindo!"_

The bag split. In their reliably Slytherin fashion, the boys Snape was walking with continued on, and Avery even kicked an ink bottle so that it deliberately skittered far out of Snape's reach.

She could see the tight exasperation in the boy's shoulders as she hurried up behind him.

"Excuse me, but-" That was all the farther she got. Without facing her, his wand flicked into his hand and directly at her heart.

"Kindly tell me what is _so_ desperate that you had to ruin a school bag to say it?" he whispered sibilantly. When his black eyes locked on hers, Hermione forgot she was breathing. Fear and loathing argued for dominance there, radiating chilliness from fathomless darkness. "Then again, I suppose destruction of other's property is an easy habit to acquire from Black."

"I'm sorry," she stammered.

"Sorry?" The curl of his lip made it clear that the word was one he had heard too often, and with little sincerity attached.

"I can repair it." Her voice found more sure footing as Professor Snape's orders echoed in her head, driving her inexorably forward. "I will in a minute."

"_That_ you can fix it is immaterial. _Why_ did you break it to begin with?"

"I need to talk to you."

"I'm not interested. Potter and Black can talk to me themselves."

"This isn't about them!" she snapped.

An arched eyebrow. She sighed. "I am sorry. I will fix your bag." With a wave of her wand and a swift _"Reparo,"_ the bag sprang back together. The eyebrow shifted from judgmental to unwillingly impressed.

"Proficient," he murmured. Hermione stared at him. It was not her professor, only the child version of him, but still, some part of her squirmed pleasurably to hear his approval.

His eyes lifted to hers again after he had given his bag a good long stare. The coldness in them had abated, and while they weren't warm, the loathing had also vanished and Hermione knew she had been granted a reprieve.

"I…I play an instrument," she started, offering information on herself first. But as the last work left her mouth, she knew it was a mistake. Doors slammed shut behind those eyes, and the thin mouth pinched together. He swung his head, breaking eye contact, and bent to scoop his things into his bag.

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked softly, all the danger returned in his hissing 's'.

"Because I know you do too," Hermione replied. Misstep Number Two. He jerked upright, and his wand was out again, the point nestled in the hollow where her collarbone joined her neck.

"Say one word, and I swear, I'll curse you to silence for the rest of your life."

"I only wanted to ask you-"

He shoved the tip of his wand farther into the space, stretching the skin, making it harder to breathe. When she was almost gagging from the force, he leaned very close to her ear and whispered: "No questions. Don't come near me again." He pulled his wand from her throat, backing away quickly to finish putting away his books.

Hermione's hand was at her throat. Her eyes prickled with tears, mostly from the wand that made her breath rasp in her throat, but also from disappointment and defeat. She rubbed the rapidly reddening spot with a finger.

"And remember," his fathomless eyes glared at her over his shoulder, "if you tell anyone, you'll end up in Azkaban."

He strode down the hall. Even at thirteen, he unbuttoned his over-robe just the right amount to let it flare outwards from the waist downwards, making him appear larger than he was.

As he vanished, Hermione rested against the stone of the walls and let her tears come in earnest. Every day she felt the pressure of her failure to succeed in her task for Dumbledore mounting, and now she had reached what appeared to be an insurmountable barrier: Severus Snape's harsh personality. She knew it was he who she was looking for, but she didn't know how to gain his trust or even persuade him to hear her out.

_Such a comfort to know that some things never change_, she thought sarcastically, angrily wiping her tears on the back of her sleeve. Just like in the Shrieking Shack, when he had refused to listen to their explanation of Pettigrew's livelihood, now he fled before she could truly talk to him about it.

"_Don't come near me again_." "What am I supposed to do?" she whispered in frustration to the corridor as her throat closed over once again. "How am I to get to him?"

Unsurprisingly, the grey granite had no solutions.

888

"Are you all right?" Remus asked as she made her way into the common room. She blinked at him and hastily ran her hand over her face.

"I'm fine," she lied. "Just a little…well, my potion for Slughorn wasn't perfect," she invented, knowing that the wolf in him could smell her distress.

Some of the admiring professor he would be shone in his eyes for a moment as he shook his head. "I'm sure yours was still better than everyone else's."

"Except Snape's," she muttered, sharp exasperation coloring her tone.

"Don't let James and Sirius hear you say that," he chuckled as he dipped his quill in his ink to start a fresh line on his Arithmancy chart. "Even in that tone of voice. They don't think he can do _anything_ well."

_It definitely goes both ways, _Hermione remembered wryly, her thoughts drifting to the vicious fights between Sirius and Snape even as adults. "Why aren't you at Quidditch with them?" she asked.

"Quidditch is fun to watch, but not when it's all training maneuvers." He shrugged. "I got bored. Peter might squeal watching James catch the Quaffle every time, but since he _always_ catches it, that sort of takes the anticipation out, doesn't it?"

"That always how I feel watching Harry play," Hermione agreed without thinking. "He's always going to catch the Snitch- victory is essentially guaranteed. It's not as much fun knowing the outcome."

"Harry?" Remus asked.

Hermione's mouth snapped shut to prevent herself groaning aloud. Secrecy indeed. It didn't take three weeks to start blowing it…

"A friend of mine at home. The boys school near the Institute always came to our dances and parties and I got to know him. Superb Quidditch player."

Remus nodded and turned his attention back to the parchment desperately trying to roll up as he insistently pushed it flat, scowling as the black ink smudged and pooled on the dry sheet.

Hermione sat, twisting a lock of hair in he fingers as she contemplated the boy trying to save his homework in front of her. She had been debating since his transformation to tell him she knew, and offer him her help. It was clear that James and Sirius didn't yet know… but they would surely figure it out soon. _"The better part of three years..."_, and they were Animagi by the end of their fifth year. It had to be soon.

_Maybe I tell them_, she thought suddenly. _I could_. _He said they 'figured it out', so maybe I don't. But he also didn't tell me so much… about my being here, about any of this…_

The golden sunlight lit dust motes fluttering over an empty common room. Everyone else was out in the autumn air, in their clubs or in practices. There couldn't be a better time.

But a sense of awkwardness bound her tongue. What could she possibly say to him? _Er…Remus, about that werewolf thing…_ There was nothing to say. She could wait for James and Sirius to discover the truth instead of making him endure "discovery" twice.

And as long as Snape refused to hear her out… She didn't need trouble with one or all of the Marauders. Ron had long since proven that boys could be just as sensitive as girls, about and sometimes more so. James and Sirius were likely to chuck her out as soon as they learned she was actively seeking Snape's company anyway.

More withdrawn indeed. Not for the first time, Hermione wondered about Harry's Occlumency lessons with Snape and whether he had ever broken the Legilimen's defenses. It was unlikely… but any clue to as to how to break through the closed boy's walls would be welcome.

"See you later, Remus," she said absently as she started up her staircase.

888

In her room, Hermione slumped on her four-poster, dropping her bag absently by her feet.

"_Don't come near me again."_

_Sorry, Snape. I have my orders. From you._


	6. Flute in the Wall

Disclaimer: Not mine. 

Flute in the Wall

For the next three weeks, as September blew out in cooling winds and a blustery October swayed the trees outside the castle's lower windows and swept over the Forbidden Forest, Hermione brooded and waited. She had taken to haunting the library after classes, sitting near the window, mind only partially focused on her work. As the first Quidditch match drew closer, the boys spent more time on the pitch. Only Remus accompanied her to the library, and she wondered how she would slip past him if she heard the music again.

But Snape seemed to have taken her attempt to speak to him in the corridor as a signal that he could not play, for she had not heard anything since her effort had failed.

The first Hogsmeade weekend was posted- it was to be Halloween. Her first dinner with Slughorn was also looming on the not-distant-enough horizon. Tonight, in fact. In spite of his joyfully boomed "no excuses" she had cited homework as her reason for not attending the last, which had caused him to roar with jovial laughter and "absolutely insist" that she and Lily come this evening. She had forced a smile and a light-hearted reply, told Lily and laughed genuinely at the girl's pained jade eyes when Hermione had announced, "If I'm going, you're going."

Hermione sighed, glaring into her mirror. She missed her harp. She missed singing in her little room under the tower. Sitting here, gathering the same dust as the books she read, she wasn't accomplishing anything. And, perhaps if he heard her sing, Snape would be willing to approach her.

But tonight she didn't have time to contemplate that. Instead, there was Slughorn.

"How're you coming?" Lily poked her head out of her curtain-swathed bed.

Hermione frowned at her reflection. "My hair just won't…" She shoved at it a little, sighed, and pulled the pins out, letting it cascade down her back in long, unruly curls. She brushed one that cheerfully flopped into her eye away irritably.

"Your robes are beautiful," Lily replied in admiration. She giggled at Hermione's expression. "Let me fix your hair." Setting both long legs on the floor, she came out.

"What are you wearing?" Hermione asked as Lily dragged her bathrobe closed over her slip.

"I'm debating. Mum found a pair of green dress robes in Diagon Alley. It took her forever- she's a Muggle, you know, so she doesn't know much about wizards, but she said she wanted me to have some 'fancy witch' clothes." She shifted a little as she ran a brush over Hermione's mane. "But…last summer, Trina and I were in an adorable little shop in Cornwall, and I bought some there that are sort of a silvery-black overlay on dark red cotton."

"Well, actually," Hermione said suddenly, as she watched her curls taking shape under Lily's deft fingers. A bobby pin brushed over her scalp and another set was pinned up to fall loosely next to her face. "How dressed up are we supposed to be for this?" Her own dark blue gown was semi-formal, neither as beautiful as the dress she had worn to the Yule Ball nor as rough as her school attire.

"You're right," Lily admitted, and laughed. "The ones from Cornwall are for, well, formal things. Like black-tie parties." Hermione laughed.

"What?"

"I haven't heard the phrase 'black-tie' in a long time. It's not a wizard saying, is it?"

"No, I don't think it is. Wait…you're a Muggle-born?" Lily asked in surprise.

"I am," Hermione replied quietly. As the last pin pushed the last curls into the knot that Lily had made, a core of hair where her curls spilled out all the way around like vines wrapping a wreath, she caught the other girl's eyes in the mirror.

"It's beautiful!" She admired herself, turning to face the glass from all directions, spinning and twisting her head over her shoulder to catch sight of it from the back. "Please don't mention that, though." Lily frowned at her, the smile the compliment had brought to her lips fading as she took a step back.

"What? Why not? Surely you're not ashamed-"

"It has nothing to do with shame. It has to do with simplicity. Where I am from, everyone knows and nobody cares. But here, here where some people so clearly do care, here I'd much rather that people didn't know."

Lily nodded slowly, and then, "Is it for the same reason that you don't like Peter Pettigrew?"

"I- what?" Hermione spluttered, spinning around to properly face Lily, instead of looking at her through the glass.

"I saw you at breakfast, and in class, and, frankly, well, all the time. You look as if he burns you every time he touches you."

Hermione stared at the girl, and then finally, "Yes. It's for similar reasons." She could sense the raw curiosity emanating from the other, and prayed the girl would not press her further. Fortunately, Lily seemed gifted with a skill that Hermione herself had spent many years learning, for she did not pursue her questions any further, but accepted Hermione's refusal to answer more specifically and went back to her own bed to retrieve her robes.

"Thank you so much. This is lovely," Hermione said again, giving herself a final once over.

"You're welcome. I'll teach you how sometime, if you want." Lily's voice was muffled by her green robe. As she pulled it over her head and pulled the criss-crossing ribbon on the back tight, she gave Hermione a look, head cocked to one side.

"Will you tell me why- about Pettigrew, I mean? And how you know all the stuff you know? Not now, but, one day?"

Hermione hesitated. "Maybe someday. But don't…please don't talk to anyone else about it. Especially the other girls?"

An unladylike snort issued from Lily. "Naturally." A quick smile. "I don't betray secrets."

"Thank you." Hermione stood, allowing Lily her place at the mirror. "We should go soon."

"What's the rush?" The other girl wrinkled her petite nose, frowning. "I can certainly wait to fawn all over Professor Slughorn."

888

"We're already fashionably late," Hermione said, eyeing the oak door with some misgiving. "I reckon we'd better go in."

"Yeah." Hermione was surprised at the reluctance in Lily's dragging step and voice. She wasn't a girl with a flair for the dramatic or one for putting up a scene. She was quietly efficient while she went about doing her work. Her evident dislike and continued balking at this requirement indicated how much she loathed the idea.

"It's all right. We _are _all dressed up. What Slytherin is going to dare remark on our Muggle-ness when we look like this?" Hermione felt unfamiliar as the older sister as she cajoled the younger girl gently. "We can show them we're not afraid. We are invited, just as they are."

Lily scrunched up her nose fastidiously, but the comment had straightened her back, and, shooting Hermione a grateful smile and without hesitation, she shoved the door open. She had been given a mission, no matter how distasteful the crowd, and she had a goal. It steadied her.

To that end, Hermione was stunned to see Lily smiling gracefully into the candle-lit office. There were nine others seated there, a blonde girl who looked oddly familiar seated next to an unpleasant surprise on the left side of the table: Lucius Malfoy. His mouth lifted in mocking salute to her entrance, and he bowed his head in a courtly fashion. It was clear that he had not forgotten their encounter- or his challenge. She tore her gaze from him to look down the table and see-

Snape. Stiff-backed and clearly the youngest present, his eyes glazed over her, staring at a spot over her shoulder, and Hermione could feel the chill in the room increase at the absolute sense of invisibility he gave her.

"Ah, excellent, excellent, my, my ladies, we'll forgive your lateness on account of the fact that the look was well worth the wait!" Slughorn cried jovially, rising. Oak-matured mead was already in his cup, and the nods of his students accompanied his outrageous proclamation to take any possible awkwardness out of the situation. But Hermione narrowed her eyes as she watched Mafloy's gaze travel leisurely over her body. She was not, after all, the barely budding child she had been as a third year. She was nearly seventeen, and the dress robes displayed that as none of her school robes ever had. She winced as she thought of that. Perhaps she should have done something about hiding the curves that betrayed her true age.

It was entirely too late to worry about that now. If the older Professor Snape could only witness her ineptitude at 'under cover', he would doubtless never have supported Dumbledore's decision to send her here.

"Sit, sit!" The wave of his hand indicated the only two empty seats. One of them would sit next to Slughorn, across from a witch with long, black hair, and the other would sit next to Snape and across from Malfoy. Hermione quickly moved forward to seat herself next to Snape. It would make her uncomfortable, but at least she could watch them both more covertly from there.

"Have you ladies met everyone? Well of course not. Down there is Bartemius Crouch Jr., he's a Ravenclaw, son of Barty Crouch- Head of Magical Law Enforcement." Her eyes swept down to the end, where a pale boy with straw-colored hair was seated. He smiled politely. She felt her jaw clench, the memory of Harry after the Tri-Wzard Tournament bright in her mind, and wondered if the whole evening would be this way. Was everyone at the table except Slughorn, Lily and herself future Death Eaters?

"Next to him is Thomas Marchbanks, grandson of Griselda who sits on the Wizengamot. Also a Ravenclaw." A friendly-looking boy with dark hair gave them a grin. Hermione grinned back. The Marchbanks' were friends of Dumbledore. He was all right. "And Narcissa Black." The girl next to Malfoy smiled coolly, and Hermione understood why she had thought her so familiar. She had met the future Mrs. Malfoy only one time, at the Quidditch World Cup. She had not thought meeting her again would be at a social gathering where they were supposedly equals. "She's the niece of Orion Black, head of the ancient pure-blooded family, a Slytherin. Next to her is Lucius Malfoy of the Malfoy family. Know his father Abraxas very well, also a Slytherin…" Hermione could not summon a smile for the boy who not only looked so much like his son, but whose gaze raked her with a refined insolence at their first formal introduction. "And next to me is Kassandra Zabini, daughter of Anthony Zabini. You know Severus- he's her cousin… and…ah! Down next to Severus is Klytemnestra Zabini, Kassandra's twin, as you can probably guess and let me see…yes! Beyond them is Amos Diggory- son of Archibald Diggory, who is quite the rising star in the Department of Magical Catastrophes, I understand. He's a Hufflepuff."

Hermione felt her heart seize with a dread that had become customary. Fortunately, Amos shared few physical similarities with Cedric- but there was an honesty about his nature radiating from the grey eyes that reminded her of the Hufflepuff from her own time. But she allowed her mouth to curl up as she looked at him, as she had managed to smile at the others.

"Ladies and gentlemen, these are two of the, as I'm sure you will all admit, exceedingly rare, Gryffindors to enter the club, Hermione Granger and Lily Evans."

Introductions finished, Slughorn sat down at his place, peered at the menu, and ordered, "Roast beef." The food materialized on his plate. Hermione knew the system, it was the same one used for his dinners at Hogwarts twenty years later and the one put into place for the Yule Ball. She absently scanned the menu, trying to glance around Snape to the girl seated just on the other side of him. Unless she was much mistaken, the twins were the two who shared his company the most often. But the sallow, pinch-mouthed boy blocked her view of the dark-headed girl, and she had to confine herself to studying the one seated on Malfoy's left side.

After everyone had ordered what they wanted, Crouch asked from the end, "Why haven't you been to dinner before?" The question was directed at the three new students, but Slughorn answered for them.

"I told you about my three absolutely brilliant Potions students, Barty. Severus, Miss Evans and Miss Granger here are quite adept. I thought it was time to take a- shall we say more involved?- role in their education."

Hermione could feel the interest at the table sharpen. Slughorn's exclusive club was carefully picked, the qualifiers a combination of bloodline and brains, the former counting for much more than the latter. Someone in the club for merit alone was well worth taking an interest in- and Slughorn had made no mention of family for either of the girls.

"Potions?" Malfoy idly swirled his wine glass, entirely for effect, as he did not so much as sip from it before setting it down. "Brilliant, eh, Professor?" It was clear he was baiting Slughorn for more, and the professor gladly handed it to him, never one to stint while bragging about his favorites.

"Don't know if I've ever had three more talented students- and all in the same year! No, if all three of them don't end up with their masteries, I'll be a very disappointed man. Not that I'm worried about that." He gave the two girls an enormous wink. "I've marked you already, and I'm never wrong. Severus will probably be running the Experimental Potions Department at the Ministry within the next fifteen years."

Seized by the sudden need to snort with laughter, Hermione ducked her head and reached for her water. Snape, run a department? The man would need to learn more about people than a lifetime of experience was going to give him. And fifteen years would see him teaching. In Slughorn's place. In fact… she glanced up at the old wizard. His hairline was thin and receding, the lines of his face were already heavily drawn. He would not teach for many more years before his retirement.

"Why Potions?" Malfoy made sure the question was directed at Hermione, his gaze cutting both Lily and Snape out of the discussion. Hermione saw Narcissa shoot him a look, then give Hermione a speculative glance that bordered on rude, and sit back, a malicious smile tugging at the corners of her too-blue eyes. Kassandra also gifted her with an appraising perusal, Malfoy's deliberate attentions focusing her dark gaze on the Gryffindor. But where Narcissa seemed relaxed, the Zabini girl tightened, anger underscoring her gaze. Hermione was left with the thoroughly uncomfortable feeling that some information of import had passed between Malfoy and the two girls on either side of him, and the clearly possessive quality both of them exuded confused and worried her.

"Why not?" she answered quietly, focusing on Narcissa. He shrugged in reply, and before he could ask her anything else they were, thankfully, interrupted by Amos Diggory at the other end of the table.

"Sir, I heard from Professor Sprout that we're going to have visitors." Every head in the room trained on him. He smiled a little nervously before apologetically adding, "She was ordering the house elves to fix five extra rooms."

The slower turn of her head towards Amos allowed Hermione to catch it. The Zabini girls were engaged in the most animated silent conversation she had ever seen, their dark eyes glowing and snapping in the torchlight. Klytemnestra's eyebrows were lifted in question, and Kassandra's head dipped knowingly, an affirmative answer to her sister's unspoken query.

"Goodness, Amos, I'm afraid my Slytherins are having a bad effect on you," Slughorn chuckled, distracting her. "Eavesdropping on a teacher?"

Amos blushed readily, and Hermione smiled. No matter what Slughorn said or thought, regardless of how many doses of Slytherin influence he received, Amos, like his son, had not a single deceitful bone in his body.

"It was an accident," he explained hurriedly.

"I _see_," Slughorn murmured exaggeratedly. "An _accident_."

"Sir-" the boy protested.

"I'm only teasing you, son."

"But is it true?" Barty Crouch pounced in, light eyes eager with a shadow of the man he would be. "Are there going to be visitors? Who?"

Slughorn let out a massive sigh, clearly for show. "I believe I'm not supposed to let items of such a sensitive nature slip around my dinner table."

Ten pairs of ears leaned in, everyone eager to bite, though Hermione's eyes were still locked on Kassandra's, the other girl listening attentively for an answer she already had. Their professor took a swig from his cup, plainly enjoying being the undisputed center of attention. "However, I believe you all worthy of a least a little trust…" Hermione watched the students hold perfectly still, hardly daring breathe lest they change his mind by too overt a display of excitement, and wondered for the first time exactly who played who. In her own time, Slughorn was viewed as little more than an old man who enjoyed his drink and his minor power-plays, plucking his favored students from the mix. But this man, no matter how much mead he had consumed, had an air of refined sharpness, a sure knowledge of what he could and would say- and the response he would receive.

"We are going to be having a few…inspectors, if you will, at the school on a matter of a rather delicate business," he finally allowed. Kassandra's mouth lifted briefly in sardonic amusement, she sent a glance to her twin and relaxed in her chair.

Slughorn sat back. Glances crossed as the students frowned at one another, clearly disappointed that no more was forthcoming. Hermione and Snape locked eyes and he acknowledged her for the first time, her puzzlement mirrored in his features, his eyes cutting to his cousin across the table. _He knows she knows something_, Hermione realized. Had they both been watching the exchanges?

"What kind of delicate business?" Malfoy's voice was casual, but there was no mistaking the interest in his tense shoulders and fingers that gripped the stem of his glass a shade too tightly.

"Business that is none of yours," the professor replied. "In seriousness now, we must discuss other topics, and I don't want to hear anymore about it- nor do I want to hear of you telling your little friends what I said." He gave them all a look from his chair, clearly expecting a response from each one.

"Of course not," chimed ten voices, some honest, some lying.

"Very well. Now, Lucius, tell me about your preparation for your N.E.W.T.s…"

The rest of the evening proved to be an obstacle course of subtle and not-so-subtle attempts on the part of the Slytherins to get Professor Slughorn to answer more about the 'delicate business' and the nature of the inspectors. Each time the subject was broached again, the twins' eyes danced merrily. But the Potions professor refused to tell them anything further, and waved them away merrily at the end of the dinner, promising them another invitation soon.

Hermione and Lily walked out together, each occupied with private fuming on the waste of what could have been a productive evening, and had gotten no farther than ten feet when Hermione heard her name.

"Hermione Granger."

She sighed and whirled around, exasperated. "What do you _want_, Malfoy?"

"The invitation still stands." His voice was silky, and quite against her will, Hermione felt a pleasurable shiver meander down her spine. "I was wondering if you'd given it any further…thought. Perhaps without Potter and Black interrupting every two seconds."

Hermione felt a cold smile rising to her lips, and she let it ice her eyes as she replied: "But how can I, with you being promised to someone else?"

He looked momentarily surprised, but replied with the same unflappable smoothness. "That's not really an issue," he sidestepped neatly and without hesitation. Her eyes flashed.

"Interesting. I would say it's an insurmountable barrier."

He laughed genuinely at her aloofness and leaned closer to her. "Play hard-to-get, girl. It is, without a doubt, one of the most thrilling games. And have little doubt that I will win." He seized her hand, pressed his cool mouth to it and straightened with a wink, strutting away.

"What was that about?" Lily was staring at her, amazement and revulsion both flashing on her features.

"Nothing," Hermione replied, setting her jaw. "He won't leave me alone."

"Creep," Lily hissed.

Hermione turned with her friend to resume their walk back to Gryffindor Tower only to see Snape, standing not twenty feet away at the juncture of two walls, watchful and unsmiling, his cousins just beyond him- one with a puzzled look, the other with narrowed eyes that glittered cold menace.

888

At breakfast the following morning, Hermione's eyes swept the hall, eager to find James. She saw Remus instead, sitting alone as usual, the _Prophet_ opened, headline facing her.

She joined him, and he gave her a shy smile. "Hi."

"Good morning," she greeted him. "Where's James?"

"Probably cursing his alarm clock. Why?"

"I need the cloak."

"What for?" he asked, interest piqued.

Hermione thought about Amos Diggory's revelation the night before, and the knowing, nonverbal exchanges between the Zabini twins. "I'll tell you later. I don't quite know myself, yet." She noticed the suitcase next to his place at the table. He glanced up at her, and she knew he had caught her staring at it.

"Are you going home to visit your mother again?" she covered, a little awkwardly. A half-smile crooked in the corner of his mouth.

"Yes."

"Good luck," she offered.

"Thanks." A short silence, and Hermione felt compelled to ask something more.

"Does the paper say anything?"

"As a matter of fact, it does." Remus flipped it closed and slid it to her. Hermione glanced at him, surprised by the grimness of his demeanor, unfolded it again and looked at the cover.

MYSTERY MERCENARIES ENGAGE DEATH EATERS 

At two o'clock this morning, in front of Madam Malkin's

robe shop in Diagon Alley, the owner reported hearing a

loud bang in her shop under her flat.

"I stayed upstairs, naturally, what's a little stolen or

damaged merchandise compared to staying alive?" The

Death Eaters apparently did not enter the shop, but sounds of

Appartition and then of dueling were heard by the residents

of the alley shortly thereafter.

"And then…I heard the most eerie music, like a, a kind

of a howling, but in the loneliest, most beautiful lament…"

"They ripped the street apart. Tore out the top row of

apartments just like that," an anonymous source reports. The

residents cannot claim with any certainty what happened, but

the second-story homes over Fortescue's ice cream parlor, the

broom shop and Flourish and Blotts have been shredded.

"If this was done by music we could be dealing with

another Dark Lord the likes of Grindelwald," was Tom

Barrister's (owner of the Leaky Cauldron) opinion. The magical

community has not forgotten the numerous massacres that

accompanied Grindelwald's use and abuse of music, which led

to the ban of most classical forms of music in the wizarding

world.

Perhaps most puzzling were those engaged with fighting the

Death Eaters. Inside sources confirm that they were not from

the Ministry, nor did they remain in the area after engaging the

Death Eaters and music was heard…

888

"Who was it?"

"I don't know, Master," Rookwood gasped, doubled over, breathing hard. But even as the stabbing pains subsided, his face was wrenched upwards, almost-black eyes searching his face, flickers of red flaring to life. Obediently, he opened his mind, quashing the urge to shield himself that always accompanied his lord's prying eyes.

"Not the Ministry. That much is clear from your mind." The self-styled Dark Lord paced in front of his bleeding servant, apparently blind to the gaping hole in his side that ran rivers of blood from between Rookwood's fingers to coalesce in a rippling puddle oozing over the floor.

"I heard music, master," the man whispered, stretching his free hand to seize a chair as his knees buckled.

Reddening eyes snapped to him, and finally flickered over the wound. "Heal yourself," he commanded dismissively.

"Thank you, master," Rookwood breathed. He painfully dragged himself away, stumbling at the door. Voldemort returned his gaze to the low-burning fire, index fingers pressed together against his chin. His servant would survive the blood loss- the agonizing wait while he reported was no less than he deserved for his carelessness.

Underneath the still face of the lord, fury seethed. Music. Someone else was utilizing his weapon.

888

"What do you make of it?" Walden hissed, pointing at the article.

"I don't know. I'm going to ask our master. It'll change his plans if we're fighting two groups. He may want the girl sooner."

"How?"

Lucius shrugged. "There are plenty of potions that I can use to silence her. I'm not worried about how. I am worried about when."

888

After their last class, James and Sirius watched Remus walking into the sunlit Great Hall, prepared to meet Dumbledore.

"Go get your cloak," Sirius murmured.

"Why?"

"Just do it."

"You want to go after him?" James followed his best friend's thought and his gaze.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I think he's hiding something and I don't want him to feel like he has to lie to us. It's obviously a big deal if he has to go somewhere once a month."

"His mum being sick-"

"She's not. But he might be. And we should be able to help him out."

James frowned at his friend, but Sirius was staring resolutely at the retreating figure, Remus' brown hair crowned gold in the shafts of light slicing from the ceiling.

"Hurry," Sirius urged.

One more look at the hunched figure of his other friend, James made up his mind. He sprinted back towards the Gryffindor dormitory for his cloak.

888

Klytemnestra tapped her lip with her quill. Inspectors. Slughorn had been teasing, his little nibble of truth tossed to her anxious classmates so vague it might as well have been a lie, but that much had been all too obvious in his delivery. She snorted, dotting her 'i's' with slightly more pressure than needed, annoyed at her occasionally supercilious, always smug, Head of House and Potions professor. The arrival of the guests and their purpose was a carefully guarded secret- she was only hazily aware of it herself, and that because her father knew them- entirely too well.

She had debated writing him another letter relating the events of the previous evening, and had decided against it. Slughorn's enjoyment of baiting them had not revealed anything remotely approaching the truth, nor would it. Perhaps Slughorn himself did not know the real reason for their coming.

Klytemnestra frowned, put her quill down and rose abruptly. Anyone bearing the family name would be spared their guests' suspicion as a matter of course. But Snape was not a known name. Her mouth twisted with displeasure. What had her Aunt Eileen been thinking, marrying a Muggle? Especially _that_ Muggle? In a world where name was everything, her mother's sister had permanently crippled her brilliant, stubborn son. He would have been better off illegitimate. At least the Princes still carried authority and a fortune.

Crossing to the door of her dormer, she slid into her shoes and started down the spiral stairs, seeking her cousin. Her mother's words sounded in her ears. _"He's Eileen's only. Protect him, Kly. You know what Slytherin is like, and he'll probably get himself into trouble."_ Her mother hadn't predicted the going-to-prison type trouble that Severus would be in if his clarinet were discovered under his bed, and Klytemnestra was setting out to ensure that she never would.

Severus was, as usual, in the library, occupying the entirety of one of the larger tables on his own, charts spread everywhere as he scribbled Arithmancy Runes and equations over various pieces of parchment. She reflected that it was fortunate that most students did their homework in their common rooms and dormitories. There wasn't enough room in the library for them all to work as her cousin did. She frowned as she spied several different handwritings among the parchments, and the names 'Rodolphus Lestrange', 'Michael Avery' and 'Timothy Wilkes' scrawled at their heads. Perhaps most surprising was the spidery, elegant handwriting capped by a calligraphic 'Narcissa Black.'

"Severus." One hand flew up, indicating his need for silence as his lips moved furiously, quill scratching. A minute of this went by, then he dotted something, underlined a word with a self-satisfied stroke and dropped the quill, his head lifting at the same time, heedless of the ink that splattered over his robes and the table. It did, however, miss every single sheet of parchment.

"Yes?"

"What is this?" She was distracted momentarily from her original purpose, her fingers straying over the essays belonging to the other boys. Snape followed her fingers, shrugged.

"The price of peace."

"What kind of peace?" Her 'v'd eyebrows deepened as she tried to interpret her cousin's answer.

"A truce. I glance over their essays, they help me with other stuff. And we don't hex each other in the bargain." Klytemnestra subdued a snort. For her cousin to agree not to curse those who annoyed him, the other boys must have been able to offer him that which was not easily accessible to him otherwise. But she had no further time to debate over his uneasy alliances- her warning carried more weight than childhood politics.

"Come with me." He frowned, and the wave of his hand took in the full spread of his work that he would have to pack up if he left the library.

"Cast a ward around it," came her immediate solution. He opened his mouth to object, recognized the logic, and glanced around quickly for Madam Pince- after all, there was a general ban on magic outside of class for anyone under sixth year- and poked his wand furtively at the table, delighted when he felt a gentle, pulsing shield spring into place over his texts and homework.

He left the library with his cousin, following her as she walked down a hallway. "I don't want anyone to have the chance of overhearing us," she told his as they strolled deeper into the castle, passing the main floor and heading for the dungeons.

Finally, in a deserted corridor, she turned to face him. "Severus, you have-" and stopped. For his eyes had glazed over, and his index finger on his right hand lifted and fell gently, marking time to some unheard stimulus. "What-?"

"Shhh." Dark eyes closed, his mouth relaxed, peace spread through him. And as she concentrated, afraid to breathe lest she miss it, Klytemnestra heard the quiet thread of sound as well.

The piping notes of a flute floated to her through the stone wall, faint, but undeniably there.

"Who is it?" she asked, voice hoarse with dread, praying it was not someone she knew…

Her cousin's eyes snapped open, oddly shuttered in the guttering torchlight. "I don't know." His gaze sharpened. "But I intend to find out."

888

Hermione sprang out of her armchair as James sailed through the portrait hole.

"James-"

But his feet were already disappearing up the boy's staircase. She frowned after him, and stayed standing next to her chair, waiting. No more than a minute later saw him tumbling back down, a suspicious bulge now added to his bag.

"James!"

"Yes, Hermione?" he asked, not pausing in his rush to the hole to leave again.

"Can I borrow that?" She followed him out and jerked her head at the bag.

"Ermm- sure, later."

"Why later?"

"'Cause Sirius and I are using it now!" He was running flat out already, his answer shouted to her as he tore down the corridor.

"What for?" she called, pelting after him. He did not reply as he screeched around the corners of the halls, sprinting to his destination.

She raced in his tracks, barely keeping him in sight as they hit the largest staircase leading to the atrium just outside the Great Hall. She saw him skid to a halt in front of Sirius, the silvery cloak slithered out of his bag and into his hands as if eager for use, and he threw it over them. The boys vanished.

Hermione stopped dead in the middle of the stairs, throwing her arms on the banister to keep her balance. To stay with them, she was going to have to listen.

She watched one of the benches in the hall move of its own accord through the open double doors, heard the thud and the mild cursing. She stepped quietly down the rest of the stairs and into the hall. She heard the _snick_ as the side door at the end of the hall closed on their exit.

Abandoning any pretense at stealth, she tore across the hall, jumping over the empty table at the end of the hall and wrenching open the door.

Across the lawn, she could see the Whomping Willow, and near it, two figures, one with long graying hair, the other slight and much younger. Her heart clenched. They were following Remus.

And on the open green, there was no effective way to tell where James and Sirius might be. She squinted into the setting sunlight, looking for where the grass was flattening unnaturally. She shivered. She had left in such a hurry that she had no defense against the cold air-

-there! A patch of grass sank beneath an invisible weight. Keeping her eyes on the progress of the pair, she began stalking them.

"What?" she heard the audible hiss as Dumbledore prodded the knot of the violently thrashing tree and the branches stilled.

"Good luck," Dumbledore's voice carried faintly on the wind.

"Thank you, sir."

"I'll be back here in two days for you, Remus."

"Yes, sir."

Hermione installed herself behind a tree, peering through leaves as Remus vanished into the ground and Dumbledore watched until the tree resumed its usual activity. As soon as he had turned and started for the school, James and Sirius pulled the cloak off not ten feet from where she was standing, staring at the place where Remus had gone.

"Well, at least we've established he's not going home to see his mum," James offered in a shaky voice.

Hermione snorted. Both boys whipped around, startled, and glared.

"What's up with Remus?" Sirius demanded.

Hermione hesitated. A little too long. Sirius crossed to her furiously. "You know, Hermione. Where is he going? Where does that go?" His finger was pointed, quivering, at the closed roots of the tree.

"The Shrieking Shack," she answered softly.

"The Shrieking Shack?!" James echoed. "That's haunted!"

"It's not. Remus goes there."

"Why?" Sirius pressed.

"What happens tonight?" she returned. Both boys glowered at her, impatient with the idea of riddles, but she gave them an equally steady glare.

"What do you mean?"

"We're in Astronomy. What happens?"

Sirius gave her a puzzled look, and glanced skyward, as if the two stars now winking out of the darkening night would give him the answer he sought. But she could almost see the wheels turning as he thought, staring up. And as his gaze came back down, his eyes snagged on the moon growing above the horizon, a tiny sliver of what would soon be a whole.

"Full moon."

"He's a werewolf," James was fast on his friend's heels. A fleeting look of smugness crossed both boys' faces, conquered swiftly by surprise and fear. They stared at Hermione as if hardly daring believe their own pronouncement.

"He's a werewolf?" Sirius asked again, softly. Hermione could see in his eyes how desperately he wanted her to deny him, but she bit her lip and nodded her head.

"He's a werewolf."


	7. The Wolf

Disclaimer: Not mine. 

The Wolf

Hermione, Sirius, James and Pettigrew were sitting in the third-year boys' dormitory on James' bed, silence swamping them. Pettigrew's eyes were massive as they darted between Sirius and James, begging for a denial. Hermione's stomach flopped, her vision darkening as his tremulous squeaking sent her mind to another room with another bed in a different house…

"What are we going to do?" James finally voiced the question.

"What do you mean?" Sirius bristled.

"He's dangerous to us!" Pettigrew squealed. Hermione felt a stab of pleasure at the glower James and Sirius both turned on him.

"Siri, I didn't mean it like that, I meant…I meant we followed him to help him, right?" James reclaimed attention from the unfortunate Peter. "So how are we going to help?"

"We can't help, James." The other boy looked older in the face of this unexpected, total defeat. "Lycanthropy is incurable. And often fatally dangerous to humans."

"We can help," James argued.

"No. There are some facts of life that cannot be made better by wishing, no matter how hard we try. The best thing to do is not tell him we know," Sirius rebutted quietly. He took a deep breath. "It'll be like it always was."

"No, it won't, Sirius," James replied softly, but with the edge that his son would inherit and would later save his Harry's life many times. "We can't pretend. And we shouldn't try. It would be mean to fake it. You know that. He deserves to know. And he needs our help. There must be something we can do- anything."

"The best Healers have been working on it for centuries, James. What can we do?" Sirius pressed. "Merlin knows I'd be glad to help Remus in any way we can, but this is not some malady that can be waved away with a wand!"

James stood up and shrugged, then turned to Hermione. "You spend all your time in the library, 'Mione. Will you help us find something?"

"I can look," she promised carefully- was it her place to find their solution for them? "But Sirius is right. Lycanthropy is one of the most extensively researched and experimented fields, and all to no avail."

"If we don't look, we'll never know," James stood up. "I'm going to the library."

888

Hermione crouched at the entrance to the teacher's wing. Everyone except for the Heads of Houses, who had to be accessible to their students, and Dumbledore, lived in the same wing. And any guests the school had been required to accommodate over the years had been lodged in this same place- at least according to _Hogwarts, A History._

She waited impatiently beneath James' invisibility cloak for a teacher to come through and give her access. She had left the boys frantically leafing through every book she could pull off the shelves that related to lycanthropy- and a few choice ones on human transfiguration. They should be able to put two and two together on that.

Her muscles ached as she held still, trying to keep her breathing even as her legs trembled from squatting too long. She had been waiting nearly an hour.

One hour ticked slowly into an hour and a half and still she waited, silent and invisible, cursing the driving curiosity that held her there, wishing that she had never attended Slughorn's dinner to fuel her need to discover. But mysterious visitors at the school had never once been for the purpose stated. Umbridge had made 'inspections'- but that had been a power play by the Ministry. _Inspectors_. What was that supposed to mean? It could mean anything, and while it had been clear that Malfoy didn't know, much to her relief, it had been equally clear that the Zabini twins did. Hermione hated not having access to information that others possessed. She thrived on piecing the puzzle together, her intelligence long since bent to using logic to survive. And she knew nothing of the Zabinis. Blaise was her year, a Slytherin, tall, arrogant, chocolate-skinned and beautiful, his mother one of the most stunning witches of Africa and clearly not one of these two fair-skinned, dark-haired girls. But his cool demeanor did not add to her lacking impetus to trust one of his family, even if their connection turn out to be distant.

Professor Vector came quickly round the corner, interrupting her musing, and she stood swiftly as her teacher murmured the password and the stone rippled, revealing a door. She opened it, Hermione hard on her heels, and the girl slipped through right as the door closed with a _snick_.

Holding her breath to keep it from echoing in the corridor, Hermione stopped as her professor continued, marveling at the scene before her.

This hall was clearly one of the many places in Hogwarts that was bigger inside than out. The floor gleamed, tiled with white marble, unlike the stone of the rest of the castle, and a narrow channel of water shimmered blue-green down the center of the walk. She could see Professor Vector, standing on the shallow stream and drifting quickly down the hall until she turned and stepped off- presumably at her room, and was lost behind a red-veined marble column. The pillars stood out from gold-run marble that sparkled on the walls and banked the heavy mahogany doors with their burnished copper doorknobs. Overhead, arches curved to set on top of the columns, crowned by the ceiling painted with spells, inscriptions and scenes.

Even as she watched, the scene closest to her morphed like the ceiling in the Great Hall to show a girl, bent over and watchful beneath a diaphanous fabric and sneaking forward- her eyes widened. It was her. And the inscription near it twisted from Latin to English, spelling quite clearly: _Intruder_.

Then the alarm screamed.

888

"Where's Hermione? I can't find anything useful," James sighed, slamming a book shut.

"Here's something! A werewolf is only dangerous to people!" Sirius pushed a book triumphantly in front of his friends. The page was an illumination of a werewolf hunting, rabbit hopping merrily alongside it. James snorted.

"Okay. But as none of us are exactly rabbits and we _are_ human, I fail to see how that matters."

Sirius' face fell. "There has to be something…there has to be a way. Maybe there's a spell or a potion that could make him think we're animals or…" he trailed off, but left the book open to that page as he lifted another and started thumbing through.

888

Five different heads poked out from their quarters, the doors sliding open at the same time as if planned.

"I thought no one was coming until tonight!"

"Don't be ridiculous. They haven't come, Kettleburn, it's a student," Vector replied sharply. "Must've slipped in right after I did. I can't believe I didn't see them."

Hermione glared at the ceiling, which was now detailing her frightened hunch, the cloak shimmering gossamer over her body- not hiding it, but betraying her. Taking a deep breath, she did the only think she could think of. She stepped onto the river.

The water held her, and slithered her past her five bewildered professors who were checking behind columns, rapping on doors and testing knobs, past every door with a polished plate stating the name and job of the professor who occupied those rooms. When one after another the doors came more quickly and were labeled "Guest Rooms" she stepped off, pressed herself against a column and listened to the now-distant voices.

"Must've gone right back out," a female voice was saying.

"I thought the door locked them in automatically?"

"No- we _were_ thinking of adding that precaution and decided not to. An extra expense for warding that we had no wish to incur. Someone felt it wouldn't be a- what did you call it, Hooch? 'A foolish expenditure for something we would never use?'"

"For five students a year? A waste," Hermione heard Hooch snap.

"Well, I don't see anyone, and none of these doors are unlocked except those we just came out of," came the gentle voice trying to steer them back onto the important topic.

"They could have slipped into one of our rooms."

"Yes, but then they will shortly be discovered and punished anyway- not exactly a way out."

"Why would they be in here? There is never anything in this wing that a student would care about."

"It's where we live. Doubtless they're hoping to find grades or confiscated items."

"Well, if they're gone we'll never know," Kettleburn sighed heavily.

"We could just look at the ceiling," Vector offered. Hermione cursed under her breath. Then again, why have the enchantment if not for exactly this reason?

"I don't see anything in the entryway…" their voices came to a low murmur as they presumably studied the ceiling painting.

"Strange…they must have slipped out by now." Hermione's breath burst in relief, a long sigh covered by the flowing water.

"I still can't imagine what a student would really want in here. All of _my_ grades and everything stay in my office."

Vector's smooth voice cut across the babble. "I suspect this student wanted more than papers. Remember who comes tonight?"

"But the students haven't been told yet." This remark was greeted by a marked silence until Madam Hooch hissed angrily.

"Didn't Horace have one of those blasted dinners last night or two nights ago?"

Kettleburn groaned. "Yes. And you know he'll say anything if he's had too much, and Lucius Malfoy is snake enough to pump him for it successfully." A snort of laughter from one of the others.

"Unsuccessfully," Vector countered. "Why else send someone?"

"You think he would have?"

Hermione leaned around the pillar as the voices got quieter and she heard only snatches of their conversation.

"-private material-" "-very sensitive, I can't believe he would open his mouth-" "-"Something should be done about that…" "Malfoy a detention…" "-can't prove a bloody thing-" "Headmaster made it quite clear, I think-" "No student can know why they're here-" "Come to think of it, I'm not sure I know why myself…"

The murmur turned into silence. And then, "Well- at least there's no harm done," Vector's voice reached Hermione's ears clearly. "There's nothing here that they could discover anyway." Faint noises of a agreement, the sound of feet on stone as the teachers dispersed in front of her, leaving the grand hall empty.

Hermione sighed in frustration. The guest rooms were indeed all locked, and she dared not try to charm them open for fear of setting off another alarm. She stepped back on the shallow river and let it carry her to the door, which fortunately had _not_ locked her in and needed no passwords for exiting, and closed the wood behind her, watching it become stone once more before shoving the cloak into her bag and starting for the library, cursing her complete waste of time. So much for independent research. She would have to think of a way to approach the Zabini sisters.

888

"Tonight, we have some guests I would like you to welcome!" Dumbledore stood from his high-backed chair, glass in hand as if proposing a toast. The students, all anticipating dinner, silenced their chatter and turned their attention from their empty plates to the aging headmaster.

"Please welcome Messrs Mroczek, Scheck, Praha, Blevshik and Shova." A polite smattering of applause as five wizards dressed in identical red robes swept in from the side door to take five extra seats at the high table. James and Sirius next to her were embroiled in a heated argument that was nevertheless almost silent, all arm waving and frantic whispers- probably about a solution for Remus. However, at the Slytherin table, Hermione could see Narcissa whispering to a friend, Mafloy's mouth at Macnair's eagerly-listening-ear, the heads of the Zabini twins inclined together and Snape watching the five avidly, as if he could glean something from the swish of their robes.

As she watched him, his gaze turned slowly, raking the table, until his eyes met hers. To her surprise they locked, he blushed and quickly jerked his head away, returning his attention to the men.

Hermione frowned. Several weeks of being gazed through as thoroughly as if she were invisible had been not only unpleasant, but frustrating when she knew she absolutely _had_ to get him to listen to her. For him to be looking at her, and then so guiltily jerk away… none of her thoughts were charitable or comforting. Her professor twenty years from now always knew more than he should, somehow, as if he had a direct line of information tapped directly from the stones of the castle itself. Was he no different as a boy? Did he know of her foray into the teacher's wing? The only time she knew he had paid her mind before this was after Slughorn's dinner a few nights ago- watching her exchange with Malfoy.

"…for the short time our guests are in attendance, I expect all of you to display the manners so carefully taught by your loving parents!" Dumbledore was finishing his speech, all kindliness, eyes a-sparkle with good humor. His five companions did not seem to share it however, Hermione noted as they pulled out their chairs and lowered themselves into them with matching stiffness, expressions unreadable as a dentists' holiday card, and food started appearing on the tables.

"See- he told us himself," Lily nudged Hermione with her elbow. "All that maneuvering last night on Malfoy's part was wasted time." Hermione could only nod, having missed the crucial part where he explained what the men were actually doing.

In spite James and Sirius' palpable frustration mingled with excitement and Malfoy's too-bright eyes as he studied the newcomers, Hermione could not focus neither on the odd visitors or her friend. Instead, she kept stealing discreet glances at the Slytherin table, knowing that Sirius and James would not notice her suddenly new interest. But Snape did not oblige her by lifting his head or turning to face her again.

888

"Here." Sirius had books scattered over his bed, opened and earmarked, spines cracking as he flipped them over to tent them on a specific page. "Hermione- what do you think?"

"Where did you go?" James asked Hermione as Sirius frowned at a text, thumbed through it, found a picture he was looking for and arranged it next to another page from a different book.

"I had an errand to run. It was about the inspectors," came her purposefully vague reply.

"Yeah, that's weird," James muttered. "I don't remember ever having an inspection before. What do they-?"

"I'm done," Sirius announced. James instantly thrust all thoughts of inspections out if his head as he leaned over the books with Hermione. Sirius put one long finger on a yellowing parchment at the top of his haphazard display of dust, calligraphy and illuminations.

"Werewolves are dangerous only to humans," he started. "That's Point One. Point Two follows: Werewolves are not dangerous to anything else. Point Three: Humans, like all animals, like all objects, can transform. Point Four: It is safe for us to transform through methods like Polyjuice Potion, although that is only for human-to-human changing, and therefore not useful for practical application in this instance. Point Five: Lycanthropy has no cure, no vaccine and no moderators- at the moment, it is utterly uncontrollable, so we can't change Remus. Point Six: If we can find a method for becoming animals, that's our best solution."

888

"Hi, Remus," James greeted his friend cheerfully. Perhaps too cheerfully, for Remus lifted his head from the newspaper and frowned.

"What happened to you over the last forty-eight hours?" he asked, picking up his cup of coffee. "You're all awake. I go home for a day or two, suddenly James Potter is a morning person. And you haven't even touched caffeine."

"I guess this morning is just a good…morning," he finished lamely. "Don't worry- I promise I didn't go and turn over a new leaf on you."

"Hmmm. Pity, that. I could have used company."

"Hermione keeps you company," James waved it off airily.

"Where is she?" Remus twisted round, looking past and around his friend towards the double doors, as if hoping that James' voice had summoned her.

"Oh, you know, being a girl, brushing her hair, painting her nails- ouch!" James rubbed the back of his head and scowled at Hermione, who had snuck up behind him and slung her books at his back, hitting him and sliding a leg over the bench in a single, flawless movement.

"If you ever suggest that I would waste my time painting my nails again, James Potter, you'll have more than a Potions textbook collide with the back of your head." Remus was laughing, and James adopted a look of injury.

"Fine thing when my own mate won't warn me what's coming."

"Would have spoiled the fun."

"So…how was it?" Sirius asked, plunking down on Remus' other side. The brown-haired boy gave him a curious look.

"How was what?"

"You know…your thing you do."

Remus sat back, a pit forming in the middle of his stomach. Sirius' eyes were too bright, too alert for his friend at this hour, just as James' were. And Hermione had a look comprised of pity and worry on her face…

"You have never once called it 'your thing you do'," Remus whispered, pushing words past the fast-growing lump in his throat. "What do you know?"

"We know the truth," James' voice caused him to flinch, as if he had been physically stabbed from behind. James' hand descended on his friend's shoulder and squeezed. "It's okay, Remus."

"I see."

"Yep- and, due to _my_ brilliance," Sirius paused for effect, leaving Remus staring at him warily, "we also have a solution."

888

Remus perched on the edge of his bed, watching his friends nervously. It had taken every ounce of self-control he possessed not to tear out of the Great Hall, through the double doors and across the lawn that morning. He remembered all of the lectures and plans from his parents, all of his carefully fashioned lies and excuses and thought bitterly that he could likely write an entirely fictional, if incredibly dull, novel of his life with the number of falsehoods he had painstakingly created.

For all the good it was doing now. He had been stupid to think that a normal life, with classes, sleeping in a dormitory and best friends, would allow him to pass unnoticed. And now it would be back on the train. That had been the agreement- his absolute silence, secrecy and safety for a normal magical education like every other wizard boy received.

All day, he had avoided being alone with any of them- sitting resolutely at the Gryffindor table all through lunch, deliberately ignoring James' none-too-subtle hints about needing to go to the library. Sirius' remarks about the perfect weather and the shame it was to be stuck in Charms on an afternoon with a peerless blue sky had been met with hunched shoulders and a determination to get to class as soon as possible.

But now the day was over, and he could no longer avoid them. He kept his eyes on Hermione. She was neither nervously jittery like James nor bluff and full of puffed-up bravado like Sirius. Nor did she tremble like Peter. He swallowed. Peter had not looked him in the eyes all day, and Remus knew he was deathly afraid that they wolf would come leaping out of the boy's skin and bite him. _Not that he doesn't have a right to_, he reflected, a sharp pain catching in his throat. _This is why I wasn't supposed to come here, why I don't belong. Why I will _never _belong._

But Hermione radiated a quiet acceptance, her resolve the eye of the storm. There was no pity, fear or pain in her gaze. Instead, he could see a sense of mirth- not directed at him, but the other three, and her amusement at their reaction calmed him, kept the slow-burning panic under control.

And it allowed him to ask questions without fear that his voice would squeak with emotion.

"How do you know?" James and Sirius had both brightened at the sound of his voice- for most of the day, he had closed his shoulders around his body as if he wished for wings to cloak himself and said nothing- but they shuffled awkwardly when they realized they were going to have to explain themselves.

"Well, we erm…er…we just-"

"Followed you," James finally spit out. Sirius glared at him. "What? We can't lie about it, Siri. We followed him."

"Why?"

"Because we've been worried about you," Sirius jumped in quickly, as if the faster these words came out, the more quickly they eradicated those that had come before. "We wanted to make sure you were safe."

"_I_ was safe," Remus said softly. "I'm the wolf. Do you have any idea what would have happened if I had somehow found you? As a wolf?"

"We didn't follow you to the shack," James clarified quickly.

"Then I don't understand. I was still a boy when I went under the Whomping Willow to the Shrieking Shack. How do you know?"

Two heads turned in unison as they looked to Hermione. She gave him a rueful smile. "I helped them figure it out, Remus. They are your friends, and they knew then that visiting your mother was hardly what you were doing."

"We knew the phase of the moon, right? And we figured it out from there," James told him. Any pride he had in his deductive reasoning faded swiftly in the face of his friend's disappointment- and fear.

"I see." Silence descended in the room once more before a pained, "How long have you known?"

Hermione flinched. She had so hoped that this one awkward, obvious question was one that she would not be asked. And since the truth could not suffice… "I've known since I saw you transform the first time. I had a friend in America who was a werewolf," she spun quickly, "and the dark circles under your eyes, the pale, almost papery quality to your skin, your love of rare meat right after a full moon- she had the same symptoms."

"What solution?" he finally croaked. He turned back to Sirius. His dark friend had been bursting to tell him all day, and he had been evading the subject. It was time for whatever courage the Sorting Hat had seen in him to come to the fore.

888

Severus settled against his bed pillows propped on the wall, front teeth gently folding the end of his quill back and forth, tearing the feather stem bit by bit.

The melody he had heard in the wall waltzed through his mind at all times- during class, in the Great Hall, even through his sleep- not a dream, just a piping of notes, one after another after another, steady and smooth and constant. Klytemnestra had warned him to be careful, that the rising Dark Lord was hunting those like him, but he itched to find another player. He felt more than dutiful family affection for the older twin, he might even label her a friend, but while she had talent, Kly could not play as that flutist had. And was a wizard as powerful as Voldemort really going to be looking into a school?

"_I…I play an instrument." _He had not told his cousin of the conversation in the dungeon hallway with the Gryffindor witch, the age-old adage about knowledge and power staying his tongue. And now, more than ever, he found the wish to keep it private. She had entrusted him with a confidence of the highest degree. She did play an instrument. And she did it spectacularly well.

The thirteen-year-old boy frowned as he considered Lucius Malfoy, also actively seeking her attention. His jaw ached from the tension that accompanied the memory of that strange scene in the hallway. The Malfoy heir made his skin crawl. Everything about him epitomized the worst of Slytherin's considerably tarnished reputation. Why? What was the older boy's game? What could a Gryffindor four years his junior have for him? Given the way she addressed him- with contempt and just a little fear, Severus doubted she had been so forthcoming with him about her taboo musical abilities. But there were whispers in the common room that the Dark Lord had servants at Hogwarts…and the Malfoy heir seemed as like as any to be in that category. In which case, he should warn her…

He winced a little, remembering their last, and only, private conversation, his firm warning- his order- that he had delivered to her. But it did not diminish his determination. _I need to talk to her_.

888

"Animagi?" Remus murmured. Sirius had finally found exactly what he had been looking for in the small hours of the morning before- and triumph had erased exhaustion as he pushed the book in front of his friend.

"The ability to transform into any animal at will," Sirius announced, somewhat unnecessarily as the bold letters of the book open in front of them declared exactly that.

"Is this how you do it?" Remus asked, eyes scanning the page.

"Erm…no. Not really," Sirius confessed. "That's just the principle of the thing, theory-"

"Says here all Animagi must be approved and registered with the Ministry," Remus read.

James and Sirius looked at each other. "They'll never approve."

"So don't tell," Hermione offered with a shrug.

"The teachers won't know?" James asked. "They won't be able to tell? Professor McGonagall is an Animagus- what if she, I dunno, smells it on us or something?"

Hermione recalled Dumbledore's statement about how impressive it was that the three of them managed to be Animagi without his knowing it. She smiled. _Four of us. But he couldn't say that then_. "I think we'll be all right," she said. "As long as we're very, very careful."

"But how do we do it?" Sirius had returned to the book, frowning. "Theory isn't much use for practical things."

"The books on becoming an Animagus will either be in the Restricted Section or not here at all. We may have to wait for a Christmas trip to Diagon Alley if we can't find them in the stacks."

"Even if they are in the Restricted Section, how do we-"

"Hermione can do it," Sirius cut James off airily. "You know," he pitched his voice much higher than Hermione's natural tone. "'Professor McGonagall, I had a question that only this one book can answer…'"

888

Hermione slotted her eyes at the inspector seated at the back of the room. He was perched ram-rod straight on a wooden stool at the back, and his eyes tracked Flitwick with a polite expression that implied it took all of the watcher's attention to keep himself where he was as the little teacher bobbed over the room, correcting wand swishes and pronunciation, acting in general as if the inspector swathed in red were not present.

Hermione twitched her wand and muttered the words, easily charming her buttons into neat rows while keeping her gaze on the stranger. They never wrote anything down. All they did was watch- often with far-away expressions that indicated that their minds were not at all on the present, nor did they have any interest in recalling them. They mostly seemed to float through the castle unaware of the majority of its inhabitants and their lives. It was an eerie quality. One or two had looked directly at her in the week they had been present, and given her hard looks as if probing her, frowned in her general direction and then let their gazes mist over once more as they drifted off again.

Whatever their story, the likelihood of them being inspectors was dwindling. The last seven days had given her ample time to decide that they didn't look, act or watch like inspectors. They were clearly there for a completely different reason. She cursed her impatience to know, and regretted even more that there was no way for her to gain the information. Her only sources were Slytherins, and they were so far removed from her they might as well have been on the far side of the moon.

She cocked her head a little, staring at the blackboard with unseeing eyes as Flitwick returned to it to lecture. Not inspectors. But not men Dumbledore wanted publicly exposed either. Men with closed, often hard, faces, for all the distance in their eyes and apparent inattention to their surroundings.

Slytherins knew about them. But experience had long since taught her that not all Slytherins endorsed the prejudices of their fellows. And their features detailed worry, pressure, and a great deal of hardship. Hermione sat up straighter in her chair.

Perhaps they were men of the Order of the Phoenix.

But if that was true, how did someone with the last name Zabini know them?

888

"First Hogsmeade trip ever," Lily slung her red-and-gold striped Gryffindor scarf around her neck, her excitement glittering in her green eyes. Hermione laughed at her genuine eagerness. Lily, wrapped in the books and cleverness that Hermione had once used to describe herself, too seldom allowed herself to be merely a thirteen-year-old girl.

"You're not excited?" Trina's voice sliced across the girls' camaraderie. "I guess in America you must be allowed to do wherever you want." Unpleasant snickers followed this pronouncement, and stopped as Hermione turned, very slowly, to face the younger girls.

The last two months had been unsettling for the girls she shared her dormitory with. For though one or two were her equal in physical development- a combination of their own early maturity and her late-blossoming body- none had the four extra years of experience that Hermione had secreted within her new identity, and only Lily would face the dangers the seventeen-year-old had conquered. When angered, the cold control of the fighter set into Hermione's jaw and her eyes turned to flinty shards, body tensing automatically to become a wound spring waiting for the trigger to unload her wrath.

It had never been pulled. Hermione gave Trina a long look, flickered her gaze over the rest of the girls, picked up her scarf and strode out without speaking.

"Bitch," Trina muttered as the door closed.

"If you aren't brave enough to say that to her face, don't say it," Lily challenged quietly.

"What's the matter with you, Lily?" Patricia snorted. "You used to be fun."

"I used to have no one to talk to," Lily corrected. And with a gait that unconsciously mimicked her new friend's, she, too, stalked from the room.

888

"Where's best?" The expression on the boys' faces reminded Hermione so much of Ron's first time in Hogsmeade that her memory twinged- not with so much pain as it would have two months prior, but with a fondness akin to that of a sibling's. Their wide eyes mirrored his blue gaping ones, eager to go everywhere, almost like a three-headed dog in his rush to see everything. The metaphor was, if anything, more apt here. Except the dog had four heads.

"Zonko's Joke Shop," was Sirius' first bid, to no one's surprise.

"Honeydukes," Remus challenged.

"There's time for both. We don't know yet."

"_Never saw one without the other. The number of times I had them in here, oh they used to make me laugh. Quite the double act, Sirius Black and James Potter!" _"Three Broomsticks. They serve butter beer." Hermione nodded at the warm tavern. James and Sirius glanced at each other, at the pub, and shrugged.

"Zonko's first," James agreed. "Much less crowded right now."

"Fine. But I'm meeting Lily in an hour," Hermione told them, checking her watch and clutching at her cloak. On Halloween no snow had fallen yet, but the bite in the air and the dense clouds above promised it.

"Evans?" James stumbled in a pot-hole that seemed to have suddenly opened under his foot. "Why?"

Sirius shook his head and rolled his eyes at Hermione, who smiled in spite of herself.

"You know, we're _friends_," she explained with exaggerated care.

"I _know_ that."

"What she's really saying is that we're not good enough for her," Sirius returned.

They passed two of the inspectors in their long robes- always the same blood red. Hermione and James both stopped as they passed, eyes following them down the street.

"What are they doing?" James muttered. Hermione had looked up in class one day to find him watching the inspectors almost as closely as she was, and he was not thinking of answers that he liked to his own questions.

"I don't know."

"They haven't written a single thing down. In any class. Some inspectors. Hey!" James' dark eyes were bright as he turned to her. "Do you reckon they're the people that fought the Death Eaters in Diagon Alley?"

"Maybe," Hermione allowed, and her mind started assembling the facts of the article with all she knew of the future. It would dovetail nicely if the attack in Diagon Alley had been met not by the Ministry, but the fledgling Order of the Phoenix…

"Hellooo. Zonko's? I have a Nose-Biting Teacup in there with my name on it," Sirius hinted broadly. He had evinced no interest in the inspectors- he was far more concerned with becoming Animagi. The inspectors, whether real or under pretense, had no practical impact on him or his friends.

And in spite of combing the Restricted Section every time they were in there- several times a day under the watchful eyes and tight mouth of Madam Pince (Had she ever been young? Hermione would swear that the stiff librarian looked exactly the same in twenty years), no title had suggested itself, and they needed a title to get permission. There was no Gilderoy Lockhart in this time - no teacher would be daft enough to them write an open-ended note.

Warm air enfolded her, accompanied by the chime that told the owner of their arrival. The inspectors were forgotten in James' haste to beat Sirius to some of the more mischievous items crowding Zonko's shelves.

888

"The other girls of our dorm didn't seek your illustrious company?" Hermione teased as Lily walked down the lane alone toward her. The other girl snorted.

"I didn't want the burden of theirs." As she fell in step beside her, Hermione was well aware of the other's eyes- disconcertingly green like Harry's- and the admiration they held. "You're different," Lily announced as they turned the corner towards the café. "Ever since you came, Hermione, they seem very…very vapid." The older girl smiled, painfully aware of the respect that bordered on awe in Lily's gaze. She had not counted on many things in this journey, but the friendship of her best friend's mother was perhaps the most unexpected. And maybe, she thought bleakly, the most painful.

Sudden and real, as if for the first time, Hermione understood coldly, gut icing in her with fear, that Lily Evans had less than a decade left to her life. Her maturation would end not with a lined face and white hair, but with death at the hands of the man destroying Hermione's world- in both times.

"Hermione?" It was clear the girl was expecting an answer to her statement, a reassurance. Hermione scrambled to remember what she said through the stark lines of reality that she felt closing around her- knowing everything, far more than she wanted to, powerless to act. Perhaps if Voldemort had not fallen when he did, the wizarding world would have crumbled to him those many years ago-

_And maybe not. I can change it. I can kill Peter. And Harry will keep his parents…_

Her mouth moved, and she forced her mind to follow it. "They are. But they'll grow out of it."

Lily pulled a face. "Are you sure?"

Hermione pushed a laugh past her lips, shoving away the morbidity of her thoughts at the same time. She thought too much of death and loss, unable to escape the foreknowledge that fluttered over her mind constantly.

She was here, now, and Lily was alive. That was all that could be accounted for. A more genuine smile touched her mouth. Parvati and Lavender were hardly inspiring examples, but both had joined the DA, and there was both courage and womanliness that glittered in their eyes when they had not taken too much care to cover it over with sequins. "I promise."

888

Walking back to meet Sirius, James and Remus to return to Hogwarts- Peter had almost stopped registering to her now- better to ignore him than allow her hatred to drive her into irrationality, she was poor enough at blending in as it was- she saw the flash of gilt capping rich black that meant Malfoy, and the grey eyes that lifted to hers ruined her chance to merely sidle past and pretend not to see him.

Better to greet him, or to ignore him? Her hesitant footsteps made up her mind for her. She had little choice but to address him as she slowed. He spared her the need.

"Miss Granger!" The same, contemptuous voice. Father and son's faces angled on different planes, their eyes shades apart. In looks, Lucius did not quite mirror his son. But the voice, _that_ his son had- would- inherit, to the life.

He made a courtly bow to her, and she sighed, making the conscious effort not to roll her eyes. Walden Macnair, his ever-present shadow, skulked just behind him, and she was certain she could not fight two future- or present- Death Eaters if her rudeness earned their ire. And she was not within the safe walls of the school.

"_Mr_. Malfoy."

"You've earned courtesies," Walden sniggered behind him. Lucius jammed his elbow backwards into Walden's ribs, the many layers of cloth between then ensuring no real damage was done, but causing the laugh to turn to a cough all the same.

"Might I dare hope for the pleasure of your company on the walk back to the castle? It is getting late." Malfoy presented his arm, teeth reflecting red-orange in the dying light of the sun. The hard cast of light over the face glinted like fire imbedded in the ice of his gaze, making it feral, not warm, and Hermione backed away instinctively, her eyes widening.

Then he frowned in concern, the look of the demon vanished, replaced by the boy. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," she replied firmly, locking her arms at her sides as he reached for her. "I am fine, thank you." She forced the smile and the words.

"All the same I think it would be better for us to escort you." Without knowing him, Hermione might have believed him sincere. He was certainly gentle enough as he lifted one tight arm from her side. She was aware of Macnair too close to her, behind her, his fingers just barely touching her back, but making it entirely clear.

She could not escape from between them.

"I'm afraid I've arranged to meet James and Sirius," she managed, trying to focus both on the boy at her back and lie to the one facing her.

"You can meet them at the castle- you did not look well-"

"Find another girl to play your whore, Lucius. I think she's quite clear on not going anywhere with you. Not that I blame her."

Hermione's head lifted in relief to meet the gaze of her defendant. Severus Snape stood in the road leading from Hogsmeade to the castle, chin up in defiance of the older, taller, boys, pushing his wand idly back and forth in his hands.

A strange look, one of distinct, superior amusement colored Malfoy's features. If expressions had a sound, this one would have been a snort of contemptuous laughter. But the look faded and irritation took its place on the aristocrat's face. "What is it to you?" Lucius snapped. "Just because no woman would look twice at you hardly means that I should not be allowed to court whom I choose."

"You choose. I do not." Snape had distracted them enough, and so saying, Hermione wrenched her arm from the older boy's hand and darted around them, backing towards Snape, her own hand clenched in her pocket around her wand.

For a moment, bestial anger twisted Malfoy's face, the proud, beautiful lines mangling with sunset shades to shadow him- and then it passed, smoothing so fluidly it might never have been.

There was no stiffness or awkwardness in the polite nod he gave her, ignoring Snape. "I was merely concerned for your welfare, miss. Far be it from me to force any girl unwilling."

"Then stay away from me. Always." Hermione's eyes lent strength to her voice, and it came out cold and ringing.

To this, Malfoy made no reply. He turned on his heel and vanished back into the village, Macnair on his heels. Hermione turned to her unexpected rescuer.

"Thank you?" she murmured hesitantly. After weeks of passing her by- she remembered him watching her at the dinner table and blushing and turning away. Perhaps he was not so unlikely to help her. The only question would be why. Wariness flared. She had been burned too often by trusting too quickly.

"Question or fact, Granger?"

"That depends on you," she replied, heating. But to her surprise, she saw a faint glimmer of amusement there- swiftly replaced by apprehension.

"What does he want with you?" Snape asked quietly, dark eyes now permeated with dislike at he watched the older boys' retreating backs.

"Damned if I know," came her bitter reply. "He won't leave me alone."

"Then it follows that he knows something about you- or wants something you can give him." His dismissed the red that rushed to her cheeks with a casual flip of his pale hand. "Other than your virginity, I mean."

She opened her mouth to make her reply, and stopped. He was watching her too closely, his eyes trained on the nuances of her face too tightly for simple torment.

"What do _you_ want?" The same edge she had used with Malfoy cut her tone.

He smiled, fleetingly, acknowledging her victory. But instead of replying, he shrugged eloquently and set his path back along the wide road to the castle.

"Where are your cousins, since you keep their constant company?" She held her ground, refusing the play the lead-and-follow game. He winced, whirled, his young face inscrutable.

"Why?"

"I seldom see you about without them."

"They are…otherwise engaged."

"I see." His refusal to discuss his family was neither unexpected nor off-putting. If she wanted to know what they knew about the inspectors, it was going to have to be a great deal more roundabout than the blunt questions Gryffindors were so famous for. She had asked it mostly as courtesy, the requisite small talk before she moved towards her real topic for conversation. "Last time I spoke to you, it was, 'Don't come near me again.' Yet I find you come to my aid on a Hogsmeade road. Why?" she pressed him.

At first he did not answer, and his leg swung as if he were simply going to walk away. But as the silence continued in the cold, he eventually looked at her, silhouetted by the indistinct shapes of the dark trees that heralded the boundary of the Forbidden Forest. He cocked his head as if measuring her, and Hermione found herself despairing that she would be found wanting and he would not tell her why, that she should not know-

"I have heard you play," he said softly.

She stared at him. "You can't have," she said slowly.

He snorted, impatience instantly enkindled. "_You_ were the one who came to _me_ to tell me of your instrument. Isn't it a little late to deny it?"

"No, you don't-"

"Playing inside the school's passages do not prevent others from hearing the sound," he continued, his explanation barely civil. But his expression then put his tone to lie as he smiled. It was a sweet smile, purely untouched by the bitter malice or mockery that so often shaped his face- both present and future.

"But you do play well. I heard your flute in the ninth corridor-"

"Flute?" she interrupted. He frowned.

"Yes, flute."

Hermione stared at him. "You did not hear me," she said, her voice sounding distant to her own ears as her mind leapt ahead, trying to guess. "I play the harp, and sing. I do not play flute."

His mouth opened, snapped shut. The shock, and disappointment, in his eyes was almost palpable. She understood. His recent friendliness, his stares, they were a result of her perceived genius, this flute player whom he had mistaken for her. "Then who was it?" he finally whispered, voice roughened by disillusionment. She swallowed her own disappointment to reply.

"I have no idea."


	8. Moonlight Sonata

Disclaimer: Not mine. 

Moonlight Sonata

A shade breathed.

Black like the clinging shadows around it, the guttering torches concealed the strange man-shaped pattern against the stones with their flickering, inconsistent light. But the dark eyes held no fear of detection, or indeed, a hint concern for anything they might actually see.

They were closed, ears drinking in sound. The faint spitting of the torches, the creaking of the wooden staircases moving floors above, the soft grinding of stone settling on stone for the night.

And the plaintive quality of a flute, mixing with the gentle drip of water in the lower dungeons not so far below.

Flute. In spite of horror stories and the cold realities of law and war, children never learned. But the excuse of youth did not suffice for a plea of ignorance, and the punishment could not be ignored or reprieved.

Certain of what it had heard, the shadow's eyes opened, coldly marked the worn, cracked and cobweb-covered granite of the area and glided away, slithering up the stairs, fire casting glances on red scales.

888

The tawny owl that bowled over several jugs of pumpkin juice at the Slytherin table landed in front of Kassandra without disturbing so much as a slice of bacon on her plate. She smiled perfunctorily, handed it a piece, and took the letter and attendant package from its leg.

Passing the package to Klytemnestra- unless she was much mistaken, it was some of their mother's homemade baklava left over from their annual Halloween cocktail party- Kassandra slit the letter with her knife, unfolding the tri-fold parchment.

She scanned the letter, and her eyes widened. She nudged her twin. "Look at this." Klytemnestra glanced at the letter, frowned at her sister, inclined her head towards the door, waited for her sister's agreement and both stood without comment, pulling their books with them and walking out of the hall.

888

"D'you reckon they'd know anything?" Lucius murmured to Walden, elbowing his friend and pointing surreptitiously in the direction of the departing twins, a calculating look deepening on his face.

"If they do, can't you just ask?" his friend grunted. "What use is Kassandra if she won't tell you anything?"

Lucius rolled his eyes and counted to ten. He was friends with Walden for his unwavering loyalty and unquestioning willingness to follow, not his intelligence, family or unwavering adherence to the complicated social laws of pureblood society.

"They're Zabinis. Fierce family secrets and all that. And, besides, they might not know why Snape would so willingly defend a brand-new, Gryffindor, American witch."

888

"What does the letter say exactly? Let me see it again?" Klytemnestra asked Kassandra quietly as they drifted towards the library. Kassandra opened it, showing her twin.

"A ship full of cargo vanished? Who did it?"

"Obviously, they don't know. Not the Ministry, or it would be splashed all over the _Prophet_, listed as a 'seizure of dangerous imports.' And the Ministry knows not to interfere with the business." Her finger underscored a line in the last paragraph. "Mum says to be on the listen for brass and woodwinds."

Klytemnestra lifted her head, glanced around the deserted hall fervently, made a quick decision and leaned closer to her sister, her mouth tickling the fine hairs on Kassandra's ear. "I heard a flute. When Severus and I were leaving."

"When?"

"A while ago. Like- two weeks."

Kassandra frowned at the letter. "That might be too long ago to be this. Why didn't you tell me before?"

Klytemnestra blinked, stunned by her twin's wounded tone. "I don't…I don't know. We don't talk about it much…I guess I thought it wasn't important enough to mention."

"It is," Kassandra replied testily.

"Anyway- it might not be too long to listen for them. Mum doesn't say _when_ the shipment vanished, just that it disappeared. It would be like them not to warn us until they have no other recourse."

"Where did you hear it?"

"Inside the walls near the east wing of the dungeons."

"Close to Slytherin." Kassandra's eyes hardened. "Maybe one of the Dark Lord's servants."

"There are only students and teachers here, though…"

The younger twin tapped her lower lip with the corner of the parchment. "Why couldn't it be a student or a teacher, Kly?"

"That's what I'm afraid of, Kass."

888

Black hair tangled across his pale, almost-hairless chest, kissing the few wisps that graced it. His hand dragged through her tresses, smoothing it into a fan that bridged his torso and her back.

"Kly heard a flute in the walls near Slytherin dungeon two weeks ago," Kassandra told her lover, hand tracing patterns on his flat, muscled stomach.

Her face turned the other direction, she did not see the sharpened interest in the grey gaze, though Lucius' pureblood training kept his hand running fluidly over her head, purposefully bland, movement unbroken.

"Really?" The mildness of his voice belied the leap in his chest. The chance to seduce the Mudblood had an undeniable charm in the challenge and the prize- though she was not nearly as beautiful as his blonde, willowy betrothed or this dark, tiny lover. He breathed lightly, waiting for her to continue, praying she would. She revealed little of her family, keeping anything that touched it within the tight circle of blood kin as her Italian-born father encouraged.

"Yes." Her fingers had ceased to doodle on his abdomen. "And Mother wrote me this morning about a ship full of instruments vanished at sea recently." She sat up suddenly, her hair falling over her breasts in long, rippling waterfalls. "You said your father was looking into the regulation of mage-musicians."

"A little," Lucius replied cautiously. His master's pressure at the beginning of the year to entrap the musician causing the fluctuation of the wards had led him to fashion a lie to justify the questions he asked her about music. Her father knew everyone seriously engaged in the music trade in the British Isles- and throughout most of Europe. But his invented current distraction for Abraxas Malfoy had to remain modest, a sideline hobby, not a major form of work, for if he stepped outside into the professional arena, Kassandra would write her father and expose him.

The Zabini twins, two years his junior, had held a fascination for the Malfoy heir since he was eight, old enough to meet other children in society-wrought functions. Ancient English money, the Malfoys had been wealthy, prominent members of British society since before the founding of Hogwarts, and Lucius could trace Malfoy ancestors back to the days of Merlin. Anthony Zabini, by contrast, had arrived in England twenty-five years ago with nothing more than brains, had proven himself a brilliant Italian business wizard and wed a woman twenty years younger than he, the oldest daughter of the aristocratic Prince family, Elizabeth. Scorned by society and family alike for her unwise alliance with a foreigner, it had been Madam Zabini's turn to smile graciously as her husband's ambitions made her one of the wealthiest witches in England and mother of _Witch Weekly_'s current "Most Eligible Bachelor", the son and nineteen-year-old heir, Sebastian. And in spite of the captivating girl lying in his arms, it was mostly Anthony Zabini's line of work that intrigued the Malfoy boy now, as the story of his unlikely ascent to wealth had unfolded in bits and pieces, drawing rooms and ballrooms the length and breadth of Britain whispering with scraps of information. The young wizard had begun to stitch together a tapestry of the older man's activities, and as rumor had been confirmed and discarded, an impressive pattern emerged.

The ban and control of music, iron in law since the collapse of Grindelwald's failed government in Germany, made for few allowances, but a community of mage-musicians had stubbornly persisted in Europe, enduring the laws that hindered their gatherings and hampered their practices. Symphonies had been outlawed, but quartets replaced them, licensed and registered, with Magical Law Enforcement officers standing by at all time to subdue them. And it was this market that Anthony Zabini had cornered and now completely controlled in Sicily and the United Kingdom, and had a hand in all over the rest of the continent- the import and export of instruments, sheet music, protection charms and amulets from the effects of music, legal firms shielding the enterprise…the more Lucius painstakingly researched, the wider his database had grown- the Zabini empire was vast, seemingly unending, owning everything from small, familiar shops in Diagon Alley to fully one quarter of the Orkney Wizard Port and half the island of Sicily.

"Do you know who the flutist is? It's not allowed to play at school," he pressed lightly as no more was forthcoming.

"No." His lover's eyes narrowed, and Kassandra flipped her long legs over the bed. He had placed a silencing charm around the bed kept his dorm mates from hearing everything- from banter to sex. Hair sweeping around her back, Lucius sat back against the headboard, admiring her heart-shaped arse, the smooth, slender thighs that led to a delightful triangle as she turned around…

"Where are you going?" he asked, alarm rising as she reached for her panties, sliding them on before grabbing her robes.

"I have to find something out," she replied hurriedly, dragging her hands heavily though her hair. Lucius' arm snaked about her waist, pulling her down to the bed so he could bury his nose in her neck.

"Lucius! That tickles! I have to go." She squirmed, laughter warring with annoyance for dominance in her voice.

"Surely you can stay for a little while longer," he purred, his hand sliding up the half-on robe, fingers hooking on the elastic of her underwear and tugging.

"No! Gods, don't you ever wear out?" She was smiling as she wriggled away from him. "Later." Mirth vanished as she focused once more on her thought. "I do need to go."

"What's bothering you, love?" he asked as she parted the curtains around the four poster. But instead of more about the flutist, she turned to give him a lopsided smile.

"I'll tell you when I know myself."

888

Hermione entered the Transfiguration classroom ahead of the boys, saw the dark head she was seeking, and slid into the desk next to Snape's. His head lifted briefly, his eyes flashed with a recognition neither warm nor cold- he had expressed no interest in her since their return from Hogsmeade three days ago, but neither had he rebuffed her gentle overtures to associate with him. Their joint curiosity to discover the flute player had forged a fragile truce that she tread delicately, trying not to pry and at the same time probing for details, pressing forward. It was so easy to forget now what she was here for- the Echo of Creation, whatever that might be.

"Hi," she whispered.

He grunted in reply, but his quill slashed across parchment, _Do you know who it is yet?_

She shook her head. Asking about an art that often led to imprisonment was not her forte. She had done no more than snoop a little in the girls' dormitories and eavesdropped on conversations in her common room. She had little doubt James and Sirius would have no trouble with flouting such a law, but neither of them seemed the overly musical type either. And if it was either of them, Snape would almost certainly lose interest.

"Hi Hermione." Remus plunked his books down on her other side, James, Sirius and Peter behind her, the Marauders closing around her and casting suspicious glares at Snape. He withdrew instantly, the half-written question on his parchment disappearing as he cast a Vanishing Charm.

She sighed and sat back as Professor McGonagall entered and took up her position behind her desk, tapping her quill. Turning teacups into rats was all very well and good for a third year, but Hermione's wand flicked lazily, producing a row of rats sitting up and sniffing.

A sudden memory of Scabbers rooting around and pushing his nose into the pockets of her robes for stray crumbs brought tears of fury and sorrow bubbling to her throat, and she bowed her head, loose hair falling in front of her to obscure her face.

_He's right behind me. So easy. So very, very easy._ Though she had yet to try, something cold and brilliant in Hermione made her sure that she could cast any Unforgivable successfully if provoked. Peter's presence was nearly enough on its own to provide the necessary inspiration…

With a hasty _swish_ to distract herself, each of the rats was wearing a tiny red jacket with gold braid, and another charm gave them each a top hat and a tiny black cane wrapped around their right paws.

"Bored with the lesson, are we, Miss Granger?" Professor McGonagall's voice was both disapproving and deeply amused.

"No, Professor," Hermione blushed, returning abruptly from her brooding. "I was just testing a charm I found after I finished."

"Your spellwork is undeniably impressive Miss Granger. Ten points for such proficient completion of the assignment, and take five more for sheer guts." Hermione beamed.

It was no surprise to her that James and Sirius were the next in the class to finish. Harry had mentioned at some time that his father's wand was geared specifically for transfiguration, and Hermione had had two months to observe him in action. She carefully glanced side long at Snape, and felt a pang of pity. It was small wonder that "foolish wand waving" had made its way into his first speech. Brilliant in Potions, Defense, History, Herbology, Arithmancy and Magical Creatures, his wand work in Transfiguration and Charms was deplorable. His teacup was a dirty grey and had a skeletal tail growing in place of the handle, but it lacked fur and in spite of a twitching pink nose, was still distinctly cup-shaped.

"Mr. Snape, I fail to see why the praise that so many others heap on you seems elusive in my class," Hermione heard their professor sigh unhappily, as she looked at the poorly and only partially-transfigured cup. "I have the assurance of most of your other teachers that you are a superbly talented young wizard. Nevertheless, please practice for homework and try to be ready to show me for next class." It was a drill so oft repeated Hermione felt one could hold service to it, and her stab of pity turned to anger as she heard James and Sirius sniggering behind her. She shot them both glares, and they shrank from her fierce expression.

"Professor?" she asked, just loud enough to be heard over the din of scraping chairs and books thudding their mates in hastily stuffed bags.

"Yes, Miss Granger?" Professor McGonagall's smile was warm as she gazed at the girl. It had taken the transfer witch no time to establish her intelligence and ability in this past age, making her once again one of the most discussed pupils at Hogwarts.

"I had some questions about Animagi," Hermione blended the right tones of uncertainty with eagerness. What she wanted was delicate- not just theory and reading material, but the actual tools to do it. The Restricted Section was closed to her without a title. "I wanted to know if there was a book about it."

"Several, Miss Granger. In the library."

"I looked at all of those, and they discuss a little of the theory and list the currently living Animagi of Britain, but I was hoping for a deeper look at the subject."

"What kind of deeper look?" McGonagall asked, her nostrils flaring just slightly in suspicion.

Hermione shrugged. "That's part of my problem, Professor. I don't really know where to go or what there is. Are there any titles you might suggest?"

McGonagall considered her young student for a minute, apparently weighing the consequences of Hermione's mischievous company and her obvious advancement compared to the rest of the class. The desire to foster raw intelligence won. She nodded and reached for a quill and parchment. "I will write a few names for you- they are not actually in the school library-" Hermione's heart sank. They would have to wait until Christmas. The small and quite serviceable bookshop in Hogsmeade would not have specialty items or books of advanced magic that did not appear in the library, "-but I am sure you will have little trouble locating them through, for instance, Flourish and Blotts."

"Thank you, Professor." Hermione seized the list from the desk, read it quickly, and rushed to tell the boys, who were in all likelihood perched around the corner, ready to ambush her as she raced out.

888

Kassandra breathed.

The hall lay behind and in front of her, silent in the guttering torchlight. This was where Kly had told her she and Severus had heard the sound. She sharply disapproved of her cousin's playing, and her sister's encouragement of it infuriated her. This was not what their mother had meant when she had ordered them to protect him. Severus was not on a Ministry-sanctioned track for his Mastery, and anything else could take him to Azkaban. If Abraxas Malfoy was serious about regulation, and if the Councilium was here…one could not be too careful. Her father had mentioned that the Hogwarts wards were buckling under the strain of music played in its corridors. Catching this musician, handing them to the Concilium, would rid the school of the threat to her family. Her first foray last night, straight from Lucius' bed, had been a failure. Hopefully tonight would prove fruitful.

As the pendulum on the clocks swayed towards eight o'clock, a light sound floated towards her, at first vaguely audible, then clearer as the player warmed up, and Kassandra recognized the ringing sound of simple scales before the instrument was launched into a long piece.

Grimly, ear pressed to the wall, rough stone blocks scraping her ear painfully to remind her that losing herself in the beauty of it was not the answer, Kassandra slowly made her way towards where she thought it was loudest.

888

"Albus, you do indeed have students deliberately flouting wizarding law and playing music in your school. There must be several of them, for one student could never cause so many problems with the wards." Mroczek snapped, his red robe flaring behind him quite on purpose. "I can _feel_ the magical signature of music radiating from this place, and whatever you say about a few Muggle-born students not knowing the rules, this is different. It is worse."

Dumbledore sighed, closed his eyes and shook his head, setting the quill down on his parchment wearily. "I have felt the wards fluctuating myself, and I know you would not have come if not compelled to find something. But do not be so harsh in your judgment. You know, my friend, that fully one third of Hogwarts is Muggle-born. And we are not permitted to even raise the subject of explain to them. Of course there are students who play music- and do not know it as a crime. It would be wrong, Alexander, to treat it as such. If this year's batch is slightly more talented and causing more trouble, that is hardly their fault."

"Nevertheless, Dumbledore, you're not seriously suggesting we let it slide past without checking it? Not when it's stronger now that it has ever been? When there is a real virtuoso-" "Or several," his inferior standing directly behind him muttered, "-at Hogwarts?"

"Not at all. It _is_ a danger to Hogwarts. I will never deny that. I will find the student or students-"

"_We_ will find them. And preside over their punishment."

Silence. The room waited for the tipping of the scales. "As you wish," the headmaster replied politely, knowing that this was one power he dared not trump.

"Thank you." Mroczek nodded very seriously, clicked his heels, turned smartly and left the office, his inferior sweeping behind him.

888

Kassandra was very nearly asleep, slouched on the floor, legs akimbo and at the complete mercy of whatever prefect or teacher might stroll by, when the wall she was leaning on began to move backwards. Jerking upright, the sudden rush of adrenaline waking her violently, she scrambled to her feet and backwards into the dark wall opposite, hand sliding into her pocket to clutch her wand.

She stood under a torch, her dark hair crowned, but leaving her face cast in shadow as steps grew nearer to the gaping entrance, her eyes on the black mouth of stone, eager to catch her quarry after waiting two nights in a row…

-there! Red-brown hair emerged, flute case held in the right hand. Turning to tap the stone wall with its wand, the figure watched until the stone grated closed. Kassandra wondered how it was that no one had ever heard it before, the screech of stone on stone was unique- and penetratingly shrill.

As the locking mechanism clanked closed, the figure turned with a smile, and Kassandra caught a glitter of startling green in its eyes. She blinked, surprise staying her wand. Her suspect was not a Slytherin at all, and she suppressed the instinct to blurt the name out of far more surprise than suspicion. This was not the person she was looking for- neither a thief nor even a potential servant of the Dark Lord. It took all of her willpower to keep her mouth closed.

_Lily Evans?_

888

The wind off the lake piercing his clothing to chafe his skin went ignored as Lucius stared at the ice-grey water. His master's commands were growing more impatient, and as a reminder of the Dark Lord's displeasure, the Mark glared furious and inflamed on Lucius' wrist. The owl this morning had been oblique, of course, but no less angry and the curse that set his skull-and-serpent scar to burning had commenced with breaking the seal.

_I need a report containing progress towards what I need from you. No more excuses._

The girl. But she had defenders at every turn, and the ferocious intelligence those bright brown eyes foretold meant a fight even if she was on her own. He was certain that Snape's arrival in Hogsmeade had spared both he and Walden by seconds- from detentions if nothing worse.

Snape. And the Potter-Black consortium. He smiled humorlessly. His father thought little of the head of the Black household, and it seemed that at least that family tradition was going to be maintained, no matter that Narcissa was Sirius' cousin.

But what inspired those boys- who hated each other with virulence- to rise equally to the protection of an American witch? A flute. Kassandra's allusions the night before made him grind his teeth. If others knew, if others would miss her if he took her…The first orders he had received directly from his master flickered to life in his memory.

"_Lucius, do you know why you must bring me this girl?" Voldemort was standing with his back to the boy, and Lucius leaned forward eagerly. His master seldom explained himself, and certainly not the likes of a new follower who was still under the thumb of his greatest enemy._

"_No, my lord," Lucius answered honestly._

"_Power, Lucius." The lord turned. "This is your first lesson. In the world there is no right or wrong, good or evil. There is only power and those too weak to seek it._

"_The strength of her magic and the timeliness of her arrival indicates that she is intimately connected to the Echo of Creation. Dominion of her will bring Britain to its knees."_

Control. Had she already tapped into the absolute power the Dark Lord knew rested beneath the shy, bookworm-ish surface of a third year student? Did her guardians spring to shield her because of the force of her skills with the flute or for friendship? For she could not have chosen better soldiers to march in her wake, or more unlikely groups to befriend her, especially his lover's young cousin.

He gritted his teeth, feeling the fluttering moth of fear beating its wings in his abdomen. He did not relish facing a girl with such knowledge of her own power. It was unlikely he could carry her off by force- and she had proven immune to his considerable and deliberately developed charm. In spite of his outward confidence, he was growing steadily more worried.

Kassandra. He had cultivated her carefully for several years, his final move their sexual relationship since the beginning of the autumn. The daughter of Zabini would know what to do with a musician- how to subdue her, and take her to the Dark Lord.

888

Hermione reached to snatch Snape's hand as they left Potions, and she stared at her own appendage with wide eyes, part of her not believing her temerity. The Marauders, fortunately, were a few steps ahead of her, Sirius and James grousing at the obvious partiality of Slughorn to his favorites. A vivid picture warped Sirius' black hair into red, lengthened his nose and covered his face with freckles, and Hermione was hearing Ron and Harry muttering sourly about Professor Snape's favoritism toward Slytherins in general and Draco Malfoy in particular.

"Kindly let me go, Granger." The cold drawl snapped her to the man- no, boy!- whose fingers were wrapped with hers, and she swallowed the automatic "Yes, sir," that rose to her tongue.

"Sorry," she replied acidly, and released him, flowing away from the door as the current of students carried her. His dark eyes followed her, more than aware of the slip of torn parchment she had hastily pressed into his palm. He unfolded it.

_Library. 8:30._

He scowled at it, the expression deepening as his insides betrayed him, adrenaline streaming into him, bringing his stomach into his mouth and the sense of loneliness he had so long suppressed choked him with its powerful resurgence.

He was staring after her, black eyes following the mane of hair as it darted up the staircase and collided with the blacks and browns of her friends. His captured attention did not go unnoticed by his classmates. Michael Avery reached out and deftly plucked the parchment from his hands. "Library. 8:30." He sneered, crushing the paper in his fist. "A little unromantic, eh, Sev? The library?" He opened his fist and dropped the parchment as if it had burned him. "Did some Gryffindor Mudblood give you that?"

"No. It was a reminder from my cousin to study with her tonight," Severus lied as quickly and credibly as he could. His face was smooth and impassable, worn from years of listening to his parents rage at and through him. Only James Potter and Sirius Black could get a rise out of Snape, a curious flaw that had made his dorm mates all the more determined to break him. Avery snorted, and moved on, but Timothy Wilkes, two steps behind him, shook his head in mock pity.

"A date with a cousin is all he could get anyway, Av."

Avery chortled. Rodolphus Lestrange was bringing up the rear of the group with Evan Rosier, and gave Severus a quick once over, eyes taking in the crumpled scrap on the stones. His eyes invited Severus' complaint, the slender boy's need of the promised protection, but the Severus held himself still. When it was clear that he was not going to speak, something like a grudging respect touched Lestrange's eyes, and he gave him a hint of a smile before continuing down the corridor.

_Library. 8:30._ She played an instrument. There was no question that he would indeed be going. But only a fool would go alone. Klytemnestra would be joining them.

888

Hermione glanced at the wood-rimmed clock face hanging above the entrance to the library. She had stationed herself at a table close to the door, and was keeping a jumpy eye on it. Would he come? She was not his coveted flute player- that was a different problem in and of itself, who could it be?- but she could sing. She could and she ached to. The effort of keeping herself quiet sometimes throbbed in her throat, the desire to open her mouth almost overwhelming.

And there was the mission the headmaster had sent her on.

But would he trust her enough to come?

The hand on the clock inched towards the mark, now at eight twenty-eight, now at eight twenty-nine…just as she had convinced herself that he was not going to come through the doors, the black hand clicked into position and the door swung open, admitting Snape and following at his heels…

Her eyes narrowed. One of the twins. She could not yet tell them apart, and they made her distinctly uneasy. They moved with the peculiar grace of the well-to-do, their posture and gait oozing the self-confidence and entitlement that only the moneyed could afford.

"Snape." Her voice was stiffer than she imagined it would be. He arched an eyebrow and smirked.

"Granger." He did not trust her enough to come alone. She tensed as they stood on either side of her, effectively surrounding her, preventing her from moving too far lest she run into them. She wondered bleakly if he had turned her absolute trust in him into a trap- foolish really, it was the man she trusted, not the boy. This boy had yet to become a Death Eater and turn aside from that disastrous path.

"Shall we continue this fascinating discussion elsewhere?" The modulated tones of the other girl plucked annoyance and irritation from Hermione's myriad emotions, and she rose sharply from her chair, forcing the other two to step back, away from her.

"Why not?" she murmured, pulling out an insincere smile of acceptance.

As she made to pass the Zabini girl, her slender fingers clamped around Hermione's wrist. "Perhaps it isn't necessary to go elsewhere. I'll be quite blunt, since small, direct words work best on Gryffindors." Black eyes flashed. "Leave my family out of this." Hermione wrenched her arm away, her mouth setting into a hard line. Or perhaps the Zabini's were as blood-crazy as the Malfoys, and asking them questions even by the most convoluted route would not yield her the answers she needed. Hermione tilted her head and let her voice ice to reply:

"If you don't want to be here, go. You were not invited, Slytherin."

"My cousin." Her eyes slid past Hermione, focusing on Snape. "Leave _him_ alone."

Silence, and the girl's mouth curved upwards in victory, Hermione dismissed her, turning towards Snape to whisper coldly, "Your choice, Snape. I didn't ask your babysitter along."

His face darkened, but where Hermione would have swiftly vanished from her professor's sight when he looked that way, she held her own in the face of the boy, anger and knowledge of the future bolstering her. He would choose her- because he had to. Her professor had said so.

"You said you play." His mouth was barely moving, the library far too public for private revelations.

"I do."

"Severus…" the warning hiss from the dark-haired girl went unheard. Black and brown gazes searched each other, made their decision.

"Show me." Hermione bowed her head in acquiescent triumph, pulled her pack on over her shoulders and continued past the Zabini girl, into the corridor.

Snape easily kept up with her strides, but Hermione heard the patter of feet alongside him, and peered around him to see his cousin keeping pace. "You-"

"You are foolish beyond measure." The girl cut her off. "The risks you run surpass your understanding. But where my cousin deals, so must I."

"Kly-" Snape began.

Hermione halted, turning to give the other girl a glare, six years of magical training bleeding into her tight stance, hand unsubtly thrust into one pocket to grip her wand. She neither wanted nor needed someone else involved, someone else she didn't know and instinctively didn't trust. Blaise Zabini was a Slytherin and a friend of Draco Malfoy, and it seemed that blood ran together in the pureblood families. "I am well aware of the dangers inherent in doing this," she said, jaw clenched. "It was _your_ unnecessary decision to interfere."

Klytemnestra gave Hermione a pitying look so patronizing that the other girl bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.

"Nevertheless." It was all she said, but the thought was complete. Hermione held her gaze for a moment longer, and saw, to her surprise, respect flicker to life in Klytemnestra's dark eyes, a response to the steel and pain shot through Hermione's brown ones. The Zabini girl understood as Hermione started to turn away that whatever the obstacles, this girl had the will, and quite possibly the means, to overcome them. Such unexpected strength of character surprised the Slytherin.

"All right." Klytemnestra studied Hermione sharply, saw the two words were genuine, and the corner of her mouth twitched upward, warming her eyes. Hermione blinked, and slowly returned the small smile, wondering if she dared ask about the inspectors now that they had reached an understanding.

"All right." Snape twisted his head between the two girls and the truce that was both spontaneous and almost entirely unspoken, his brow forming a 'v' in confusion.

"It's all right, Severus," Klytemnestra told him and Hermione turned her smile on the boy.

"Shall we?" she asked, gesturing down the long stone hall with one hand.

"But of course," Klytemnestra replied. Down the hall, the stairs, three pairs of eyes flitting upward in unison, checking the time on the great clock. Eight-thirty-five. Twenty-five minutes until they were outside curfew and out of bounds. Not that it mattered.

Out the door, hugging the castle wall to avoid detection from the many mullioned windows…Hermione thought longingly of the cloak buried in James' trunk, laughed silently at the idea of asking to borrow it for this.

They cut across the grass at a sprint, robes streaming behind them, the safety of the trees ahead of them- they were in, their run slowing to a fast walk, the night leaves closing in around them.

"What do you play?" Klytemnestra asked quietly as they halted, trees supporting their backs, the great lawn entirely obscured by branches, bushes and bramble.

"Harp," came Hermione's winded reply. "Clearly, I do not have it my possession. But I also sing. What about you?" She straightened up, breathing deeply.

Rather than directly answer, the cousins plunged their hands into their robes and withdrew tiny cases, which Klytemnestra enlarged. Snape was still struggling with the enlargement charm, and did not risk his clarinet with his own clumsy magic when he could help it. Anticipation lit in Hermione's stomach, tingling up her spine to flood her chest, and she bit her lip, watching almost hungrily as the viola and clarinet were withdrawn, resin applied to bow, pieces firmly fit together, and her voice toned clear, ringing as she gave them their A to tune to.

888

Power seared. Dumbledore leapt from his seat, his magic buckling in response to the wards, sending shocks through the soles of his feet. As the setter of the defenses, their fluctuations spiraled through his nerves, peaking painfully as the wards smoothed, assault retreating. Mroczek, seated and having tea, flinched as the school's shields spasmed again.

Was this part of the girl and her mission? Why would he have sent her for so dangerous a task? Had the future Dumbledore not told her when or how she was to return because she wasn't going to? It made little sense for him to send her on behalf of a future war effort if she wasn't going to make it…

"I'm going to send my people out. We have to catch the perpetrators."

"Please do," Dumbledore agreed, gasping as the next oscillation spiked into his lungs. _What of her? He cannot be allowed to pass her sentence._ "And please…bring them to me." The other man caught his eye, saw that the headmaster was not to be argued with, and nodded curtly as the door shut behind him.

888

Hermione closed her eyes, her voice weaving harmony through the melody woven by the clarinet, Klytemnestra's viola vibrating long, short, long again notes, making the nearest leaves shiver expectantly. Her eyes were focused, not on her strings, which her callused fingers slid along with the ease of much practice, but on her young cousin. When his black eyes were open, he watched Hermione, his gaze greedily locked on her, as if he were drinking her music, devouring her whole. It was a look akin to worship, and Klytemnestra felt both a faint stirring of unease and a whole-hearted understanding. Her cousin's skill with his clarinet, her own advanced playing of the viola were as candles competing with the light of the sun. Hermione's voice resounded pure, open, dipping to notes that seemed to come from the earth they sat on, and soaring into the dark canopy. Klytemnestra could _feel_ the forest moving to their music and knew that _this_ was what the Ministry feared. Nature responded to the resonating vibrancy of viola, clarinet, and above all, voice.

The rustling faded as Hermione closed her mouth around her final note and the last echo of the wind and strings faded. "What else should we do?"

Snape's eyes sparkled, and he pulled out of his coat the same teacup that had so woefully failed to become a rat that afternoon in Transfiguration. He set it on the ground in front of him, and began to play. After a long series of trills, in which the cup began to morph, Klytemnestra's viola began a run of staccato, turning the white, flower-patterned china to a dull grey. Hermione stared as a rodent started to take place, bone structure emerging in a gruesome skeleton. Her mouth opened without thought, and she started to sing, fur rippling over pink, attaching muscles and tendons, bulging outwards as claws completed, and a twitchy-nosed rat completely replaced the teacup previously settled on the damp leaves.

Three instruments halted, the trio stared at what they had created, and in the aftermath peculiar to ridiculous discoveries, they burst into laughter, startling the creature into scuttling beneath a large mushroom. Hermione listened to Snape, his voice deeper than hers and Klytemnestra's, already reaching for baritone status at thirteen. She had never heard him laugh before, and found that she quite liked the sound.

888

Klytemnestra felt later that she should have known they could not get away with it completely unnoticed. The crime was too great, the fear of it too lasting since Grindelwald's abuse. And the last wizard orchestra in Europe had been disbanded more than a century ago, long before individuals and then all but a few select groups playing music had been banned in its entirety.

Snape was heedless of the danger that haunted his cousin, feeling an undeniable desire well in him at the thought of having not just a duo, but more. He would never gain his Mastery- that his mother had denied him the chance to play without the Ministry's interference for the rest of his life tore at him, and always would.

That it was an unlikely arrangement of instruments did not trouble him. He had played solo all of his life, his clarinet the escape his father had given him as a child, one the boy had resorted to with increasing devotion as his parents fighting grew ever more frequent and violent…

They were well into changing and transposing 'Moonlight Sonata'- it took no words. Simply music, and the players followed each other, embellishing where they wished- a style closer to jazz to play, though the sound was classical enough.

Thoroughly engrossed in the song, none of them noticed the leaning of the trees, bending over them, or the whispered glow that Hermione emitted, mingled with the strands of her hair and flowing from her head like threads of silk to settle over the ground like fine, sometimes glinting gold, sometimes flashing silver, mist.

But as the magic pressed past them, through the trees, gently pushing over and under bracken to reach the Hogwarts lawn, red glinted blood-colored in the moonlight and someone did indeed take notice.


	9. The Node

Disclaimer: Not mine. 

The Node

The headmaster lifted his head wearily, glancing at his clock. In a few seconds it would strike ten, past time for him to retire-

In time with the tolling bell, three sharp raps fell on his door, and then it was pushed open without so much as waiting for his go-ahead. Mroczek marched in, mud-spattered hem swirling about his ankles, eyes narrowed, mouth tight as his fingers gently grazed the back of a student's shoulders.

Unsurprisingly, the student was his enigma-of-present, Hermione Granger.

Tiredness vanished as his eyes widened, the brightness of concern taking attention from the black smudges increasing in darkness under the blue gaze.

"This is our culprit." There was no satisfaction in the red-robed man, and Dumbledore could easily see the stiff fingers barely touching Hermione's back, light and tense with a kind of respect - and fear.

Who or what was this girl that he had accepted from the future?

"I see." He spoke to steady himself, needing time to think, to ponder. He silently cursed his lack of knowledge, and his inability to remedy it. Was this what she was supposed to be learning? Could he forbid the future her knowledge out of deference to the laws of the present? He knew quite bleakly that he was at one of the few points in his life where he truly had nowhere to go, no option that could possibly be acceptable to everyone. The law would want her instrument confiscated, the girl possibly expelled and likely placed on magical probation. But the war might be lost twenty-three years from now if he allowed her to be punished as the inspectors were going to demand.

But instead of presenting him with a concise statement of judgment, Mrozeck waited, gaze trained unflinchingly on Hermione.

_He doesn't know what to do_, he realized. _He is at a loss. She is…different. Clearly more than she's told me. Probably more than she knows._

"Headmaster, if you wouldn't mind, a word before any of us pass judgment on the girl…?" Mroczek murmured when it was clear that Dumbledore wasn't going to offer him an out immediately.

"Of course," the headmaster assented gracefully. He gestured with his wand, and two squashy armchairs scuttled up to his desk. Another sweep brought a beautiful silver samovar into existence, covered with delicate china teacups, shining spoons and a steaming pot with pink flower pattern.

"Sit down, my dear. Mroczek." Girl and man seated themselves awkwardly, Hermione curling her fingers around her knees nervously, nails tapping her legs. The silence continued as Mroczek wrestled with what he was to say, and the headmaster busied himself pouring tea.

The two men caught each other's eyes as the silver sugar spoon clinked gently in the bottom of Dumbledore's cup, and they smiled wanly, warily. Dumbledore took a dim view of those who interfered in his school, and Mroczek was accustomed to ruling by his own counsel. The chilled respect they accorded one another glittered in their gazes, and the marked lack of warmth in Dumbledore's usually bright blue glance told Mroczek that he was treading on very thin ice.

As stillness stretched and both men reached for their tea, Hermione sat frozen, arms still locked about her legs protectively, grateful for Klytemnestra's intervention, protecting the daughter of Zabini and her cousin, ensuring that only Hermione, with her iron-clad excuse, had to explain her actions to the headmaster.

_The clarinet's melody suffused her, surging through her-_

_-a rustle accompanied by snapping wood sounded to her left. She stopped singing, voice halted by alarm. "Snape," she whispered._

_A last note, turned into a squeak as his breath suddenly went the wrong way, he stilled at her warning, Klytemnestra's viola already dropped, her wand raised._

"_Stay down," she ordered hoarsely. "We will be lucky if it is a professor. There are things in this forest much, much worse."_

_Neither Hermione nor Snape obeyed, their own wands coming out, his instrument in one hand and wood in the other, forming a v as they flanked the girl._

"_I suggest you put your wands down," said a soft, cold voice, "unless you want to add assault to your considerable crime."_

_Moonlight struck the figure's robe, and it flashed blood red. Hermione's guts chilled. Inspectors indeed. Nor were they members of the Order of the Phoenix. They were music hunters. This, then, was what they had been summoned for…_

_Klytemnestra dropped her wand arm and stood up straight, the instinctive crouch fading into the ramrod back and arrogant carriage of aristocracy. When she spoke again it was unmistakable who held the high ground, and it was not the hooded man in front of them._

"_You are not at liberty to give me 'suggestions', Consular Mroczek."_

_Hermione could almost hear the man blink. She and Snape exchanged puzzled, nervous looks, and Hermione's wand subtly shifted it's focus, no longer pointed directly at the robed intruder, it fell somewhere in space between Mroczek and Klytemnestra, ready to strike either at the first sign of real danger from either of them._

"_Miss Zabini?"_

"_Klytemnestra Zabini," the dark-haired girl confirmed, her voice coldly determined. "And _this_ is my cousin." The wave of her fingers included Snape, and her voice dropped to a smooth, warm, barely audible sound. Hermione strained to catch, "Surely if the Headmaster can ignore the details of our presence, my father will ignore yours."_

_Hermione heard the man swallow in front of them, and dark brown eyes lifted to hers-_

_-a rush of sound, almost like wind, an orchestra in her mind- this man _knew_ music, intimately, inside and out, if she but opened her voice-_

"_Sweet Merlin." His terrified whisper brought her crashing back to earth, symphony vanishing into trees trunks, moss and the grass beneath her feet. His shaky breathing echoed hers, and Hermione was only dimly aware of long, slender fingers wrapped around her elbow, steadying her._

"_Granger, are you all right?" Snape's mouth was so close to her ear she felt the whisper of his exhale, and a shiver shot down her spine. His wand was still out, pointed unfailingly at Mroczek. But the older wizard had no care for the younger's mild threat. His eyes were only for the witch with a tangled mane of hair almost hiding orbs that blistered with power._

"_She," he said raggedly, one hand lifting shakily. "She will come with me."_

"_She is a friend," Klytemnestra started her objection, halting as Mroczek's head snapped towards her furiously, hood falling back to reveal livid eyes, thin lips and drawn cheeks, the hand not extended towards Hermione plunged into his pocket, clearly gripping his wand._

"_Your presence will go unremarked, as will that of your cousin, but her…" he took a deep breath, scrutinized Hermione once more with sharp, unyielding eyes and sneered at Klytemnestra. "She is not of your family, Zabini, and I-" he broke off, flaring his nostrils in a manner not unlike Professor McGonagall's. The strangely familiar gesture was absurdly comforting to Hermione, and she dropped her wand, stowing it once more in her robes. This man was many things, but whatever her eyes had told him, his had told her that he would not bring her harm._

"_It's all right, Klytemnestra," she whispered. "I'll be all right." _

_A beat, and the tension faded, Klytemnetra's role of nobility fell, leaving her another sixteen year old. Mroczek moved up to her naturally, tone quite neutral, almost pleasant._

"_All of you, inside. These instruments are not trinkets you carry and your talents are not to be taken lightly." His focus was once again on Klytemnestra, tired and aged, a well-meaning man._

_Klytemnestra dipped her head in assent. "Of course, sir. Come, Severus."_

"_Will you-" Snape had not moved, his hand still fastened about Hermione's arm._

"_I will be fine." She smiled. "I promise. Go before he decides to report all of us." Klytemnestra snorted, and Mroczek raised an eyebrow. She arched hers back, low-level tension stringing the air again. "See you in class tomorrow," Hermione added gently. His black eyes bored into hers for a moment, and then his fingers detached, leaving the skin they had covered suddenly exposed and cool in the night air. Klytemnestra and her cousin disappeared into the trees, and Mroczek gently touched her arm. _

"_Come. There is much that must need explaining."_

And now they sat awkwardly, the three of them, imprisoned in the usually inviting atmosphere of the headmaster's office. Hermione reflected bitterly that she had indeed gotten her wish. Klytemnestra Zabini had helped her discover the true identity of the so-called inspectors. Finally, with the _chink_ of porcelain on porcelain, Mroczek set his tea down and spoke.

"This girl is the Node."

Dumbledore, hand busy moving tea to mouth, stilled, half-formed words fleeing his tongue. Whatever he had expected the man to say, this had never occurred to him. Mroczek saw the shocked hesitation in his eyes and smiled sardonically.

"Speechless? What many a powerful wizard wouldn't give to be in my shoes." His smug voice was neither teasing not gentle, and the hard note in it told Dumbledore that the man had gained a small victory as far as he was concerned.

Hermione was staring at him. That appellation again. It was not difficult to recall the first time she had heard it, perched behind the tapestry, on the cusp of the corridor, Dumbledore's voice and Snape's carrying back to her through stone. Now it fell from the lips of this stranger- though the peculiar quality- excited and afraid, when he said it left her with little doubt that it was not an easy pronouncement to make.

"What does that mean?" she asked softly, fear making its appearance in her tone.

Dumbledore reclined in his chair, long fingers absently stroking the coarse white-grey-red of his beard. His gaze, thoughtful and not one jot less cool, did not acknowledge his momentary lapse and he said, quite seriously, "I don't know. I thought the Node was a myth to make us lay wizards relax."

Mroczek's lip curled with contempt of the ignorant, but the gaze he turned on Hermione brimmed with a respect bordering on awe. She squirmed, and hastily reached for a cup to take cover behind. "No. She is quite clearly real." He cleared his throat, straightened his back and looked directly at the Headmaster. "You need apply no punishment. We will be taking her off your hands. The Node is to be cared for by the Concilium. It is our duty, and we will see it done."

"No," Dumbledore denied him instantly. Mroczek drew himself up- a futile gesture. The Bucharest-born wizard barely stood five and a half feet high, and sitting down in a squashy cushion that sank under him only underscored the uselessness of the maneuver.

"It is not for you-"

"It _is_ for me." The sudden fury in Dumbledore's voice cut across the other man, causing him to sink back, paling slightly against the dark purple cushion. Without rising, or even sitting any straighter, the older wizard pinned Mroczek with a glower that few had suffered. "Hermione Granger is a student of mine, specially trusted to my care-"

"The Node is the exclusive ground of the Concilium!" Mroczek exploded, his tea dousing the carpet as he surged to his feet. "You cannot deny us the right to her training. It is the major foundation for our continuing existence!"

"Then perhaps you should not. You shall not take Miss Granger," Dumbledore replied evenly. He could not explain to this man why the girl had to stay. But she had been delivered to him for his safekeeping, and the hidebound Concilium would not remove her. Whatever she had to learn, she would not learn it in the dark caverns inhabited by this order of men.

Mroczek's jaw clenched so furiously the veins in his forehead popped, throbbing. "She safeguards," he muttered through his teeth, "the Echo of Creation. She is immeasurably dangerous and must be trained specially. Dumbledore, the power that girl holds in her voice can irrevocably alter or destroy the world!"

"I know," he whispered. Mroczek's face slackened in hope, but the look in the headmaster's eyes made it clear that he was seeing something else, something in memory perhaps, or a new revelation.

The smile that tugged at Dumbledore's mouth was entirely inappropriate, but strong enough to glitter in his eyes. The Echo of Creation was endangered- both now and perhaps in the future. He had sent the girl back to learn of the Echo, and how to control it. But he was equally certain she had not been sent here to take instruction from hidebound old men.

"Thank you for your concern, and for finding this extraordinary woman right under my nose, Mr. Mroczek," he said, pulling back to himself as if from a great distance. He smiled at Hermione. "I have but one request for you before you depart."

Resisting the urge to unleash his wand on the valuables in the room, Mroczek's teeth ground together painfully- before giving way to a sigh. Years of dealing with Albus Dumbledore had taught most of Britain's magical leaders that rearranging constellations was easier than changing the old man's mind. If it came to pitched battle for custody before the Wizengamot, the whole of Britain would know, the Concilium's existence would no longer be private, and greater consequences might ensue. "What might that be?" he asked, seating himself with resignation and waving his wand listlessly to clean up the tea soaking into the carpet.

Dumbledore leaned forward, and his next words brought Hermione out of her attempts to meld into the fabric of the chair. "Educate us. What is the Node?"

"What is the Echo?" Hermione's question followed hard on her professor's. "And what does it mean to safeguard it? How can I change the world?"

Mroczek shifted uncomfortably in his chair, squirming under the intent blue eyes of the older wizard and the suddenly sharp brown eyes of the young woman next to him. "It is not…I cannot release that information."

"What, then, does training the Node consist of, if not telling her what she is?"

Mroczek looked, if possible, more uncomfortable still. "We don't know. A Node who is also a witch is an exceedingly rare occurrence." He twisted his knuckles furiously. "Miss- Hermione Granger?" When Hermione nodded, he continued, "Is the first in fifteen hundred years."

Dumbledore and his young charge exchanged puzzled frowns. "Fifteen hundred years?" Hermione pressed.

His mouth curled into a smile without mirth, and some of his previous composure returned. "You will not like what you hear. However…as there is no precedent…are you sure you want to know? With the knowledge comes great responsibility."

"Everything. We cannot fight the war without it," Hermione answered passionately. Mrozcek's eyebrows rose.

"War?"

"Against Voldemort."

His eyes narrowed at her. "You intend to use this knowledge as a weapon, child?"

"We are losing, sir. I intend to use anything I can lay my hands on as a weapon." The quiet devastation in her voice brought Dumbledore's sharp gaze to rest on her. _"We are losing." _After twenty-three years of warfare, was the light being destroyed? A new urgency prompted the headmaster's next question.

"You said she is the first witch in centuries?"

Mrozcek sighed deeply, gave Hermione an odd look, which was met by steady, burning brown eyes, and answered. "Yes." Hesitation, a man making a decision, and finally, "Please pull out your wands."

Dumbledore produced his without hesitation. Hermione watched the headmaster, then obediently copied him, though not without reluctance.

"He is binding us to secrecy. Should we speak the contents of this meeting to another, we will suffer colossal misfortune."

Hermione nodded her understanding, thinking privately that it was very much like the charm she had used last year- more than twenty years from now- to keep the DA list on the hush.

Light flared between the wands, snaking up and over each, sealing them together. As the light faded, Mrozcek sat back, tracing his mouth and lengthening stubble with an exhausted finger.

"To begin with. it fully explains why the wards have gone crazy," he told Dumbledore. "She has more power in her naturally than the entire Wizengamot. But as for the rest…" He tapped his upper lip, and just when Hermione was certain that he had completely lost his train of thought, his eyes snapped back to her and he began to speak softly.

"The Echo of Creation is an ever-changing piece of music, the song that is the imprint of the creation of the world. It is unwritten, unrecorded - the sound that embodies every living and non-living thing on the planet. When a new tree is born, it has its own individual sound, added to the string. When your grandparents died, the chords that riddled their personalities faded. It shifts constantly, it is never still and it never ceases. It is the shadow of the magical power that created all life, and, like life itself, is unpredictable and uncontrollable.

"This magic- for the Echo is a brand all its own- was harnessed by Merlin in the days of Arthur and wedded to the Muggle world for safekeeping. Mage-musicians once spent all their lives to learn the musical secrets to one tree in one forest, or one creature, learning to create a difference in their environments and the inhabitants thereof. Virtuosos could grasp a little more, manipulate a little further, and wars were fought using music as both creator and destroyer.

"Prior to Merlin, the Echo had neither name nor structure. But to give it structure, to imprison it within the human limitations of musc, Merlin made a bargain with the magic: that one person in every generation would be capable of controlling the entire world if they ever discovered their talent. For to command of the Echo is to have power over the whole earth, to be capable of bending anything in creation to your bidding. To play the Echo meant that one could alter the fabric of the story it told, for good or ill. It is this secret that Grindelwald was seeking, and the reason that music has been outlawed in Europe and much of the world.

"To avoid the wars that had destroyed much of Africa, Merlin bound the Echo to Muggles instead, knowing that they would never use the magic. Using the Echo itself to ensure the succession, the station was delivered to his Squib son, born days after Merlin's one-time lover Niniane killed him and buried him in an old oak.

"The dormant Echo became the heart of a brilliant Muggle musician, the Node, safely imprisoned in a world that knew nothing of magic, and therefore had no knowledge of the potentially disastrous power they carried. So it has passed down from each generation since Merlin's son carried the burden." He breathed deeply and pinned her with an even look.

"Until now."

888

Lucius Malfoy's stood completely still in the middle of the tiny clearing, a space so small it almost didn't break the trees at all. But his practically-completed magical training told him that this was the place. The remnant of the magic-born mist that had boiled over the lawn was still thick here. She had been here- this was her handiwork.

He sank to a stone, legs folding under him as he considered. The abundance of energy and magic in the clearing spoke quite thoroughly for itself. His hopes of being able to get to her were slim and none, dying fast. If she already had this much magic flowing out of her, he would never be able to subdue her. And his lord's impatience, literally branded in his skin, made it all too unpleasant to contemplate failure.

But would a replacement of lesser power be acceptable? For now, he had to plead that he hadn't the strength yet- as much as he dreaded admitting weakness, he valued his life above his pride, and capturing the American-born witch by force or by charm seemed now about as attainable as holding the moon.

He shivered, standing hastily. The magic swirled around him aggressively, sensing an intruder, perhaps reading his very thoughts and objecting to them. He hurried from the forest, slipping back into the castle unseen, the movable grate dropping him directly into his dormitory.

Whatever his decision, he had to deliver to his master soon. The Dark Lord was not accustomed to waiting for his servants' obedience.

Kassandra. He had to speak to Kassandra. She had been remarkably scarce lately…but surely she would know how to subdue the girl?

888

Severus sat impatiently at the breakfast table the following morning, craning his head towards the Gryffindor table, his stomach sinking as his eyes settled on his worst enemies, but did not find the bushy-haired girl who had been marched off the night before. His nerves pricked in his body and he swallowed. He didn't know how Kly had talked the two of them out of punishment. He knew his uncle was important and rich. He had no idea that his aunt's husband was this prestigious. Enough to erase a serious crime. He set that aside to examine later. For now, he wanted to see that dark hair, those brown eyes, that bright smile…she had assured them that she would be all right. But if the consular's response was anything like his own mother's…

He recalled all-too-well his father's one outing with him as a child, a trip to the Muggle orchestra, the London Phil Harmonic, and the vicious fight that had ensued afterwards.

"_Mum, Mum!" The five-year-old wizard pelted through the house in his dress clothes, tearing around the corner and into his parent's bedroom where his mother sat brushing out her long hair. _

_She lifted her head and smiled at him through the mirror, heavy-lidded eyes taking in the small, tailored slacks, the stainless white shirt, the miniature jacket now crinkled from a child's squirming and the bow-tie cocked haphazardly at her son's throat. "There's my handsome boy! Where did your father take you today?"_

"_To the symphony," came his Tobias Snape's baritone voice in the door, watching mother and son with a small grin._

_Severus felt his mother's arms around his back stiffen, and she pushed him from her as she slammed her brush against the wooden vanity, standing to glower at her husband._

"_The symphony? Tobias-" she hissed, glanced at the suddenly worried boy that came about to her waist, and controlled her immediate reaction by grinding her jaw. "I told you-"_

"_Eileen." Severus bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. It had been such a good day, sitting at the symphony in his child's black suit, letting Stravinsky transport him, feeling his spirit rise as if it would surely carry him to the ceiling. But his father's voice promised a harsh return to earth._

"_You know what I told you about my family and music."_

"_The boy loves it, Eileen. Why keep him from it because of your foolish superstitions? So the wizards banned it because it frightens them, but we were not listening to the music of a wizard."_

"_I liked it. I want to learn how to play," Severus piped up quickly on his father's behalf, giving his mother the gap-toothed smile that had always won him her good humor before._

_Her palm connected with his face so hard he staggered backwards, staring at her. His hand did not move to his face, nor did water leak into his eyes. He merely stared as the furious red of her open hand and fingers glowed on his white skin, black eyes large, the shadow of what would one day solidify into distrust flickering to life in his pupils._

"_Never, ever say that again." Her voice was so low she almost swallowed it. But her young son had no difficulty hearing her, or the fury. A storm which she then turned on her husband. "Wizard's music, no- but see what you have done- opened a door which I now have no choice but to close on him. He cannot play. _Cannot, _Tobias. Music is not for wizards, and like it or not, your son is a wizard. No amount of your wishing can change that."_

"_I'll not have the boy grow up a coward- afraid of something that can do him no harm because of your dogma!"_ _Tobias Snape snarled, crossing the room._

_Severus felt his mother flinch backwards and scrambled out of the way, curling up near the bed, the excitement of dress clothes and Stravinsky forgotten as the sound of flesh striking flesh filled his ears._

And in spite of the musical talent that Severus knew his mother harbored, he had not been allowed to so much as listen to classical music- in any form- with his mother around. His father's one act of defiance in raising his son, his tie that kept the boy turning to him as Severus grew into what was proving to be astonishing magical power, was the clarinet his father had given him when he turned eight.

"_She might not want you to know it, but your mother played clarinet like the devil himself had given her skill. Don't you let her hear you play- but I'll want to be hearing you every so often."_

Severus' mother had not discovered it yet. Thanks to the influence of his cousin and uncle, it was unlikely that she would be discovering it now. But worry continued to darken his face as students seated themselves and Hermione Granger was not among them.

888

"Your flute player was out again last night," Lucius said quietly, running his long fingers over Kassandra's taut belly. She frowned at him, rolling over to stare into his gaze.

"I know. Why do you care so much?"

"You know? How?"

"I saw her," Kassandra replied, frown deepening between her brows.

Lucius blinked. "You saw her?" His stomach tightened unpleasantly. It was her. And her growing power put her farther out of reach every passing day.

"Yes." A long pause, and then-

"It's the American, isn't it?" Lucius pressed, an unpleasant look in his eyes.

Kassandra sat bolt upright, throwing his hand off her abdomen, disgust, disappointment and triumph in her black eyes. "I knew it! I saw you at Slughorn's dinner," she hissed. "You couldn't take your eyes off her."

Lucius sighed internally. This would take careful navigation. Kassandra had been willing to sleep with him knowing that his relationship with Narcissa precluded any real commitment. But the exception granted Narcissa did not seem to include other women, and he could not afford to lose his beautiful, passionate, resource.

"Kassandra-"

"But it isn't the American," she cut him off, fastening her bra and pulling on her robes, sliding off the bed at the same time.

"I'm not- what?" He lunged for her, missing as she flicked the edge of her school robes over the side of the comforter to fall around her feet.

"It isn't the American. The flute player. She's someone else." There was a savage delight glittering in her eyes, pleasure at denying him the prize he thought himself near.

"What? Who?" he demanded. But she had finished dressing and her eyes were cold and hard as she turned to him.

"Find out yourself, Lucius. I'll not help you make another conquest." The heavy green drapes fell around him, and by the time he had untangled himself from his sheets and was standing naked outside his bed curtains, the door had closed on her heels.

He cursed himself roundly. He needed her. She knew things he couldn't even guess about. And now he had an entirely different problem.

It wasn't the American. It seemed his master was mistaken.

But regardless of who it was, he needed her, and if it wasn't the American, who was it? 


	10. Unexpected Gifts

Disclaimer: Not mine. 

Unexpected Gifts

"I have yet to receive what I have asked from you, Lucius," the Dark Lord hissed, turning to his servant. "Why is this so difficult? Term ends, exams are upon you, and the girl I asked for three months ago remains safely locked in Gryffindor Tower, under the nose of the old man. I believe you assured me that your charm never fails with women- why isn't she here?" His voice had dropped, ugly, low and sinister. Lucius swallowed forcefully. He had heard no hint of music from anywhere on the grounds since that night. And he was about to contradict the Dark Lord, which was never wise…

"Master…I am not entirely sure we have the right girl," Lucius offered hesitantly.

"I have told you many times that she is the one," Voldemort snarled furiously. "Simply because you cannot see her talent does not change her status. You are a Slytherin. Surely there is enough cunning residing in that brain to fool one Gryffindor thirteen-year-old? I know you are slippery enough in other fields of endeavor."

"I…there is another musician in the castle, my lord," Lucius hastened to explain himself. "A different one has been seen-"

"Silence!" His wand twitched, and Lucius felt his knees buckle, toppling him to kneel on the hard wooden floor. "Your excuses do not intrigue me, _child_. I would not for one instant imagine that in all of Hogwarts, only one student played music. But she is different. I want this girl and none other. She is but a third-year witch. Her magic cannot be so far advanced as to make it impossible for you to apprehend her. If you cannot do it alone, some of your compatriots champing at the bit to prove their loyalty to me will surely assist you."

"My lord, could you use – I could bring…another-"

Voldemort whirled on him, crouching to be at eye-level with the young man. His long, hard fingers fixed on Lucius' jaw, mad eyes glaring into the grey ones. "No. I do not like repeating orders to my servants, Malfoy. I was assured by several old acquaintances that you are an intelligent child. So far, you disappoint. Prove them correct. I have offered you a substantial reward for completing this task. Perhaps you think it was not enough?"

A deluge of ice crystallized in his stomach, and Lucius hurried to whisper from his knees, "No my lord, never, it is simply that I could bring you another musician," he strove to redeem himself, "maybe more than just the girl-"

"How many of them are there? Who?" Voldemort's freezing fingers were wrapped around his jaw, clenching his bone uncomfortably as he stared into his young servant's eyes.

"I don't know yet, my lord." Voldemort could feel the boy's jaw tremble in his hand as his eyes shone bright and cold once more.

"You don't know. Find them!" he snapped, shoving Lucius over onto his back and rising in a single, violent motion. His back to Lucius, he grated, "If you cannot subdue her, then one of the others will do, as long as they are friendly. She is a Gryffindor, and will seek to find and rescue anyone she cares about. One of the things we can rely upon is Gryffindor's vaunted stupidity that masquerades as bravery. You will at least bring me the means to get her, since you clearly lack the ability to bring her to me directly."

The lord's words stung deeply, and Lucius bowed his head in shame as he slowly got to his feet. "And Lucius," the lord hissed as the boy started to take his bow. He froze, bent at the waist, daring to go neither up nor down, fearing the worst, the test he had not yet been subjected to…

"You have been spared punishment for failure because I cannot risk Albus Dumbledore's discovery of my Death Eaters in his school. But every hour I wait your account mounts, and I would hate for the lovely Narcissa's husband to be…incapacitated…for the wedding."

Lucius paled, the little color that he had draining at the clear threat, completed his bow and Disapparated. He arrived in the Forbidden Forest, shaking and gagging. He leaned on a tree trunk, the rough back and slick moss staining hands kept soft and lily-white like a girl's. He glared at the mark on his left arm, wondering what it was that had possessed him to join this madman in the first place.

888

Severus was quite sure he'd never felt a relief in his life like the sudden lightness that flooded his veins during their first Transfiguration lesson after they were discovered in the forest. _"See you in class_." And here she was, seated at her well-worn desk, looking cheerful and unharmed – if a bit tired - as she slung her books down from her shoulder and twisted, stretching her back after carrying the heavy burden. Without thinking, he was at her side.

"Hi," he greeted her quietly, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on her desk instead of her face, knowing they would betray his inexplicable delight at seeing her whole and well.

"Hello," she smiled as she automatically unzipped her bag and started to pull out their text.

"Are you all right?" he blurted, and seemed mortified by this unqualified show of caring, for he quickly stammered, "I was – that is to say, we were – worried about you…after, you know," he murmured, and now dark eyes snapped up, gaze intensifying as he stared at her.

"I'm fine-" she started, only to find them surrounded in the blink of an eye, Sirius' wand so close to Snape that it looked like he might shove it up the other boy's nose.

"What are you looking for here, Snivelly? Something to help you get through your exams?" Sirius asked loudly. "Funny thing about that, it's called cheating, you see, when you get someone else to tell you how..."

"Except, of course, when she helps you do your homework," Snape snarled back silkily, withdrawing. "Perhaps she just needs a little more…intellectual stimulation…than you Quidditch players can offer." He smirked as he turned his back, supremely unconcerned, as Professor McGonagall stood directly at the front of the room, and was in fact eyeing the six of them warily.

"Ten points from Gryffindor for having your wand drawn in a classroom without instruction," she said, sounding tired. "And five points each from Gryffindor and Slytherin for trying to start a fight."

Hermione glared at Sirius as they sat, whereupon he looked to her and shrugged with a face that plainly asked, _What did I do?_ Hermione opened her book rather harder than necessary, nearly tearing the thin pages as she flipped through it to the necessary lesson, her eyes darting to the back of the boy seated next to Slytherin Michael Avery. With the Marauders as friends, she had about as good a chance of getting Snape to trust her as the lake was likely to be balmy in January.

James leaned over her desk, ignoring the dirty look she turned on him. "We can check Folios Books in Hogsmeade – we haven't looked there yet."

"Think they'll have anything?" Remus replied from her other side, whispering to match James.

Hermione shrugged. "It can't hurt to look. When's the next-"

"Next weekend. It was posted this morning," James told her.

888

Lucius waited, stock still, puffs of breath misting on the air the only tell-tale that he was alive, and not part of the stonework he stood next to. He had five minutes to go until his appointment, and nervousness churned with pride in his stomach. Getting the man to meet here, in Hogsmeade, where he could simply slip away from his compatriots and remain after hours, instead of in Knockturn Alley, had been a difficult negotiation. But Lucius had discovered that most wizards were easily intimidated by a few intimations of pain or personal suffering.

Hesitant footsteps darkened the alley and Lucius bared his teeth in what one could call a smile as his hand thrust out to grab the man and yank him into the shadows of the building, away from any streetlamps.

Lucius' wand pressed pointedly into the side of the man in front of him, making the other wince uncomfortably.

"I have a job for you," he hissed sibilantly. He told the man what he wanted. "You can get it for me?"

"Ouch! Yes, yes, young master," the man wheezed desperately, clearly many times the younger's age. "Though it many take awhile, since the merchandise is…ah…hard to come by, as you ought to know…" The wand twisted again and he fell silent, breath rasping louder yet in the darkened alley.

"This is not the usual rubbish fools ask you for. This is for my master. And if you check this address, you should find someone who can supply you with what you seek." A slip of parchment passed hands, and the shorter, rounder figure pocketed it without attempting to read it. Moonlight reflected and refracted off the snow, their only visibility, and not enough to read by, but it was enough for Lucius to pull up his left sleeve, hinting at the angry tattoo that usually remained hidden beneath his robes and glamour spells. The older man gasped and turned violently, trying to jerk away in terror. Lucius' hand tightened about his upper arm, and for all his manicured fingers, it was quite strong enough to hold the man where he was.

'You know that sign, don't you?' the blond hissed viciously. 'Who it belongs to, what it means? Who will come after you if you fail to fulfill my request?'

'Of course,' the man panted in panic.

'Excellent. And Borigin,' he released the man's arm and the old wizard nearly bolted, 'do remember that you can't speak of this to anyone without severe consequences?'

The head beneath the cloak hood bobbed, and Bilius Borigin tore out of the darkened Hogsmeade alley, feet slamming the snow as if hell itself were on his heels, Disapparition and magic completely forgone in the rush to get as much distance between them as possible.

Lucius sniggered from underneath his hood. Yes, reporting to the Dark Lord was nerve-wracking. But watching everyone else sweat because of the Mark…that was entertaining.

His self-satisfied smile lingered as he started on the road back to the school. Kassandra might claim that the American witch was not the flute player, but his master insisted that the girl was the musician he was looking for. In a few days' time, shortly after the holidays at most, Lucius would find out.

888

"Where are you going for the hols, Hermione?" Lily asked the last week of term as Hermione sat quizzing her on Transfiguration.

Hermione blinked. "Staying here, I guess."

"You're not going home?"

"No." Hermione could not think of a lie that would sound remotely true, so she stopped with that. Lily didn't seem to notice.

"Really? You can come with me," the other girl offered. "My mum and dad are kind of curious to meet other witches."

Hermione lifted her eyes to stare at her friend. "Can I?" It was entirely too hopeful, but she had been vaguely dreading remaining at Hogwarts alone for two weeks. Before there had always been Harry and Ron, now not even born, and her parents- who not yet met one another.

"Of course," Lily replied eagerly. "D'you want to?"

"I'd love to!"

Lily seized a piece of parchment and started scribbling madly. "I'll just write my mum and dad and tell them I'm bringing a friend home…" a shadow crossed her face before she determinedly returned to her smile, and Hermione said:

"What?"

"I have a sister who's, well, a Muggle and she's not so…"

Hermione recalled seeing Harry's aunt and uncle once, and the stories of spiders under the stairs, his childhood pockmarked by his cousin's bullying and the cupboard that had housed him. Her heart wrenched. This was Harry's mother, and she had no idea what her sister would do, and fail to do, for her son…

"She's not so keen on the witchcraft thing?" Hermione strove for lightness, and was rather proud that it sounded unstrained.

"No."

"That's all right. If she bothers us too much, we'll turn her into a newt." Lily smiled in relief at Hermione's unflagging acceptance and dipped her quill back in the ink, resuming her hasty scrawl.

888

"You seem to have got us out of it all right," Severus told his cousin sharply. He deftly stripped a Bornican Bubble-Plant of its pink and purple pods, bursting them to release a liquid that smelled strongly of perfume. Professor Sprout had given the third years a chance for extra-credit if they would come after hours and harvest the pods. Knowing his classmates, Severus had told Klytemnestra. It would be the perfect, private time and place to continue the fierce debate that had been occurring off and on since they had been caught playing in the forest.

"I got us out of it once," she hissed furiously. "Don't think my father wouldn't dress us both down if he found out – and forget our mums. We'd be lucky if we had all our limbs left if they ever found out we were playing music at Hogwarts. And don't forget the reports in the _Prophet_, and what that Lord Voldemort is doing – collecting musicians. Besides…what about the other girl?" She asked the last hesitantly. There was no denying the American witch was more talented than she and her considerably powerful cousin combined, and though she would never say it aloud, Klytemnestra would pay much to hear her again…

…and true, she had been in classes and eating at the Gryffindor table with gusto ever since, it seemed she had neither been expelled nor placed on probation, then again, the counselor's eyes when he had seen her…as if he was gazing on the living face of a great, terrible goddess…

"She's fine," Severus told her firmly, but she noticed he did not meet her eyes, and her gaze on him sharpened.

"Is she?"

"Yes."

"And does she want to continue this craziness?"

"I…" He hesitated. He had not thought to ask. Her voice had been making an appearance in his dreams every night and his only thought, beating a path through every nerve center to his brain, was to hear it again in his waking moments.

"You don't know." Klytemnestra considered him for a moment, and then smiled a quiet smile, feeling a tugging in her chest at her next thought, for she had never seen her stoic, sarcastic cousin look like this about anyone.

"You like her, don't you?"

Red crept into his cheeks, but he brought up his head to glare at her, mouth compressed in a thin line. "No," he said harshly. "She's a Gryffindor."

"Ah. Of course." Klytemnestra gave him another piercing look, amusement gone. "I cannot let you practice alone, but I also will not do this with you. Severus, if you had not been with me, you would have been expelled. These are dangerous times we live in, and wizards do not trust each other any longer. We will not play again. She seems smart enough, I am sure she will tell you the same."

888

Hermione pushed her parchment away from her, tapping her fingers on her desk, nails clicking on the dark wood. McGonagall lifted her head from the front of the room, frowning, met her best student's eyes, and the frown turned into an amused sparkle. She nodded her head very gently, indicating that Hermione could go. The time for the exam was only half over, and Hermione gladly, if quietly, lifted her bag to leave, attracting stares from every quarter. She noticed Lily looking at her in amazement, Snape looked disgusted in an ironic way, envious and…what else? Was there pride in those sallow features? The delight in seeing a- were they friends?- do well? But his head swung back over his parchment, obscuring his face and leaving her to wonder what shadow of emotion she had seen crossing his features.

One pair of eyes she did not notice. Remus watched her stand, gather her things and exit, trying to nerve himself for what he was about to do. He had debated at length asking James and Sirius, but rather than endure their teasing, he had decided to simply ask her. After this exam he would go find her. After the exam.

He hurried through, his mind only half on the questions. He reflected later that it was lucky that most of the second half of the exam regarded their study of Animagi this term. Due to the many books they had been flipping through in the hopes of finding a way for his four friends to begin transformations, he doubted any student in the school knew more about the subject than they did. He dotted his last period, skimmed it quickly for obvious mistakes, bounded out of his chair to place the completed exam on Professor McGonagall's desk, and hurried out.

James and Sirius were lounging outside the doorway, having finished a full five minutes before him.

"Where are you going?" Sirius shouted as Remus didn't stop.

"I have to ask Hermione a question!" the boy shouted over his shoulder, not bothering to turn around.

"Ask Hermione a question?" James repeated. "Probably about Animagi since we didn't find anything in Folios- what?" For Sirius was grinning evilly, eyes on the rapidly vanishing figure of their gentle friend.

"I reckon he's a got a bit of a thing for her," he announced, his mouth so broad his eyes were in danger of disappearing.

James blinked. "Remus? For Hermione? Think so?"

"Absolutely. And you have to admit- they're perfect for each other."

James shrugged. "Maybe. She spends a lot of time doing other stuff, though."

"You mean in the library with Evans." Sirius dismissed that with a flip of his hand. "You know Remus. Neither of us has ever really been scholarly enough for him. A girl who spends all her time reading books? Please."

"Maybe," James conceded.

"Let's go ask him," Sirius bounced off after Remus, and James had little choice but to follow, Peter- emerging from the exam just as the bell rang- hurried after them, squeaking questions that they both ignored.

888

Remus found Hermione in the library, books for Arithmancy and Animagi spread in front of her, glowering at a piece of parchment that contained an equation the boy knew he couldn't make heads nor tails of if he tried.

"Hermione?" he whispered.

"Hmm? Hi, Remus." She flashed him a smile and went back to her books, one finger tracing a line of the ancient writing, smearing dust where her finger touched the page.

"Is that Latin?" Remus asked, momentarily derailed from his purpose.

"Yes," she replied. "And reading it is _very_ slow going."

"You read Latin?"

"Only a very little." She sighed, and the dust raised a little puff that settled on the cover of yet another tome.

Remus watched her absorbed in her work, and knew that she wasn't going to present him with a way in. So he sighed to himself, pulled up his courage, and opened his mouth.

"Where are you going for Christmas?" he asked hopefully.

"Home with Lily," she replied distractedly, crossing out a bit on her paper and glowering at it.

"Oh." The disappointment descended so genuinely he could not help the soft word, or the crashing feeling that accompanied it.

Hermione turned to him instantly, one hand stretched out to touch his arm. "Are you all right, Remus?"

"I'm fine," he lied immediately, head lifting and banishing the regret that he knew remained in his eyes. "I was just going to invite you to stay with me if you didn't have somewhere else to go."

"Oh, thank you!" She smiled genuinely this time, books momentarily forgotten. "I already said I'd stay with Lily, but maybe we could meet you in Diagon Alley for a day-"

The double doors to the library thrust open and Sirius, James and Peter came pelting through, earning them glowers from the other students.

"Remus!" Sirius shouted, heedless of library etiquette. He opened his mouth to continue further, saw who his friend was standing with and stopped, smirking broadly. Remus felt his face heat, but Hermione, blind to both Sirius' expression and Remus' response, turned on him, opening her mouth to berate him for yelling-

"Out!" Madam Pince was storming down the central aisle of the stacks, face practically puce with rage. "I have never heard such a depraved racket! Get out right now! Miss Granger, I'm shocked at you! Out! _Out_!" They hastily gathered their things, ripping out of the library before the enraged librarian could start hurtling curses.

888

"I have something for you," Lucius told Kassandra as she doodled patterns on his abdomen, tracing the tight muscles there. He was quite pleased with himself for talking her round into coming back to his bed. Two weeks of leaving the American witch fully alone – never even mentioning her in conversation where Kassandra might hear – had mollified the girl and she was convinced he cared not one whit for her personally, but merely as an object.

"What kind of a something?" she was asking and she sat up, eyes bright with curiosity.

"A gift," he teased, hand groping blindly on his side of the bed. His fingers came in contact with the silky paper, and he pulled it up, handing it to her.

She took it one-handed, and it immediately bent, curving over her fingers. She cocked an eyebrow at him. "If this is some vintage issue of _The Chamber of Secrets: Salazar Slytherin's Cunning_, or something like that, I'll hit you with it all the way out to the train."

Lucius snorted with laughter. "Kass, I haven't touched the _Chamber_ comics since I was, like, five. It's not that."

The girl eagerly tore the paper, heedless of her exposed breasts and the cold that hardened her nipples into little nubs. But her eyes grew wide, and she threw the gift from her as if it burned when she saw it fully, horror mounting in her face.

"Where did you get that?" she asked raggedly.

"Don't you like it? I got it from Russia," he said, a measure of uncertainty in his voice. "I got it shipped special…it's a Muggle piece, see, and Muggles do music all the time, don't they?"

Slowly, Kassandra regaining control of her fear-driven breathing and picked up the sheets again. The opening movement of Tchaikovsky's _Nutcracker_ unfolded for her line by line on pages of music, and she instantly wished to pull out her instrument and play. "This must have cost you a fortune," she breathed, now stroking the sheets as she recovered from her initial shock. She gave him a sharp look, but he only looked anxious that she should like it and pleased with himself for finding something that she so clearly valued. "Oh Lucius, thank you!"

"Might I hear you play it sometime?" he asked hopefully. He was banking, after all, on the fact that she played. She had never mentioned it directly, but with her father's business…Her expression of pure joy shifted for a moment, like a scratch on a record, before replacing itself.

"If it's safe. Perhaps in my house. Oh…it's wonderful! I can't believe you found this!" Her eyes were on the music, not his face, and she did not see the look of pure triumph that flashed in his grey eyes.

Mr. Borigin had his uses after all. Another parcel was going to the Gryffindor third-year-girls dormitory, courtesy of the house-elves. He would soon hear the girl play as well.

888

Hermione blinked as she opened her eyes, stretching as light from the mullioned window streamed across her face through a crack in her curtains. She frowned at the gap as she stirred. She always shut her curtains carefully around her every night, the need for privacy in a room full of girls compelling her to keep her bed – the only square of ground in the entire castle that belonged to her alone - completely private.

So who-

-as she sat up, a slippery, shiny thing toppled off the bed and landed on the floor in a crackle.

"Wha-?" Lily jerked awake across from her, and sleepy green eyes that for a moment reminded Hermione so fiercely of Harry that it hurt, peered out from her bed. "Hermione? What time is it?"

"Early, I think," Hermione kept her voice down. "You should go back-"

"What is that? An early present?" Tiredness vanished as Lily's eyes caught the sparkling wrapping paper around the rather floppy present that Hermione held in her hand.

"Erm…I guess so," Hermione replied, looking at it. It was completely unmarked. But on the other hand, it didn't feel dangerous. Just thin and bendy, like a single-issue of a comic book.

"Open it!" Lily's bed curtains were pushed back and she was seating herself on Hermione's mattress before the other girl could blink. Bed was clearly the last thing on Lily's mind. Hermione eyed it, remembering all too well what had happened to Ginny Weasley their second year. But she would never know until she looked.

She carefully untapped a corner, peeling the adhesive slowly, so that it wouldn't rip the rest of the paper. Beside her, Lily snorted. "You would unwrap your presents as if the paper were as important as the actual gift."

"Nothing wrong with recycling wrapping paper," Hermione answered. She did it because her mother did it. But Lily's impatiently twitching hands did nothing to speed her progress.

When she pulled off the spellotape binding the middle of the paper together, several white sheets slid onto the floor. Hermione hastily bent to retrieve them, and froze.

The gift was sheet music. She was holding Stravinsky's _The Rite of Spring_, and she could not imagine what the headmaster would say if he saw it, after insisting firmly that she was not to be taken anywhere, in spite of the danger her voice offered to those around her.

"Hermione…what is this?" Lily's voice sounded strained, as if all the effort in the world could not make that question a casual one. "Who sent it?"

"I don't know," Hermione answered, terror knotting in her stomach. _But you know two people who play_, her logical mind kicked in, calming her suddenly-galloping heart. _It could be either of them._

_But it could also not be either of them. In fact…Klytemnestra would never expose someone with so hard a piece of evidence…In which case, it could be anyone who wishes me harm…_

"Do you play?" the other girl asked abruptly, then clapped her hands over her mouth and glanced around, afraid that the rest of their roommates might wake and hear.

"No," Hermione lied curtly and without pause. "This looks like some immature, practical joke, especially since the attack in Diagon Alley in October has brought a fresh round of suspicion on anyone who so much as listens to classical music." She stashed the smooth, white sheets beneath her robes in her trunk. Much as she ached to play it, she would have to find a way of getting rid of it soon. Mrozcek had made it perfectly clear how dangerous and volatile her power was, and how imperative it was that she learn to harness it at all times and faced with all temptation. Somehow, playing _The Rite of Spring_ hardly seemed in keeping with his instruction to keep herself and her fellow students safe.

888

Hermione had finished packing her trunk. She marveled, not for the first time, at the assortment that Dumbledore had provided her with on a second's notice when she had arrived. Muggle clothing had been stored in the bottom of the trunk, where the music she had received a week ago was now stored innocuously (she could throw it away at Lily's house), and the modest, non-descript clothes were easy enough to Transfigure to her size and alter the color and cut to match the fashions that Lily wore.

As she carried the enlightened, half-full steamer down the stairs and out the portrait hole, she found herself face-to-face with one of the last people she had ever expected to see near Gyffindor Tower, leaning casually against a wall some fifteen feet away.

"Snape?" she murmured quietly, peering at him. In spite of their sharing music both illegal and powerful, they had not yet progressed beyond last names, her friendship with the Marauders inhibiting him, the shadow of her would-be professor tying her tongue. And there had been precious little time for talking these past few weeks. He had not asked her if they might play again, and she had not approached him either, knowing now what she knew about herself, she would probably have to say no.

He startled, saw her, color hastily blotched his cheeks, and he stepped forward awkwardly. "I…Happy Christmas, Granger," he said brusquely, thrust a tiny parcel into her hand, and darted off.

"Thank you!" she called after a moment, stunned by the abruptness of the presentation and the almost-panicked swiftness of his departure.


	11. Happy Christmas

Disclaimer: Not mine. 

A/N: So, here is the eleventh chapter of A Gift of Time, and once again the story has vastly changed, I hope for the final time before I can really move on and keep adding to it. For those readers who are coming back to this story, I strongly suggest skimming from chapter three onward, as plot points regarding the Zabini twins are especially different. Happy reading!

Happy Christmas

"Where did you get that?" Lily was staring at the gold-wrapped package Hermione was still holding clenched in one hand as they shoved their luggage up the stairs and into the train.

Hermione opened her fist, gazing at the small object, letting the gilt glitter in the dying sunlight. "Snape," she admitted as they bent to push their trunks into the compartment on the Hogwarts Express, allowing the door to shut behind them.

"_Snape_?" Lily hastily clustered next to her on the seat, green eyes shining like the thirteen-year-old she was as her fingers reached for it, practically twitching with her desire to unwrap the miniscule box herself. "What is it? A present? Why would Snape give…" she stopped, and then asked in a hushed voice, "Do you reckon he gave you the other…thing?"

Hermione did not answer. The question had occurred to her at once as well, but it truly depended on what was in the box. After all, the anonymous deliverer had ensured she didn't know who they were. But Snape had not gone to such trouble.

Her musings were interrupted as the compartment door swung open to reveal Sirius' scowling face. "What about Snape?" he interrupted, inviting himself in and plunking down across from Hermione. The gold box instantly vanished, stashed somewhere in Hermione's robes.

James stepped in, saw Lily, blushed, sat down across from her and next to Sirius, and studiously examined the floor. Mouth pursed, she sat back next to her friend, grabbing the first book that came to hand out of her bag and throwing it open ill-temperedly. Sirius smirked, and leaned back in his seat comfortable, his long legs extended in front of him, his intention plain. He was not moving.

Peter entered third, squeaked as Hermione met his eyes coldly, and hurriedly seated himself next to James. This left Remus, finally heaving his trunk into safety, to sit next to Lily's icy silence and pointed rustle of pages.

"What about Snape?" James repeated his best friend's earlier question. His eyes were on Lily as he waited.

"Nothing," both girls replied, far too quickly. The four boys swapped glances, and Sirius leaned forward.

"This is one of those 'Nothings' that means 'Something', isn't it."

"No," came the unified reply.

"Uh-huh," James muttered as Sirius snorted.

"He's bad blood, Evans," Sirius warned. The red-head's hackles rose and she bristled.

"I think I can choose my own friends, Black, and as I recall, _you_ are not amongst them."

"Hey, hey, guys…Christmas? Good cheer and peace on earth and all that stuff?" James interrupted what promised to be a row, hands outstretched, pleading.

"It would make me cheerful if you would go somewhere else," Lily snapped, curling into a ball with her book, elbows locking on the outside of her knees to form a bony fortress. "No one asked you to stick your noses in here."

James shot Hermione an appealing glance. She sighed. "They really aren't that bad." She knew her tone was less than convincing, and Lily's eyes as they lifted from her book told her so. The younger girl snorted, and conceded:

"Remus isn't half awful."

James' face continued to fall with every word tumbling out of Lily's mouth, and Hermione felt that perhaps he needed some rescuing- in the name of Christmas spirit, or just perhaps an atmosphere slightly warmer than sub-zero- so she asked in a bright voice completely unlike her normal tones, letting the boys understand that their presence was neither desired or necessary, "What are you guys doing for the break?"

"Home." The reply came from three quarters, and Hermione was amazed at how different the word sounded from each tongue. James was excited, Remus neutral and Peter…fearful? Her interest in the future traitor sharpened for the first time. She knew about Sirius' and James' home lives, in very broad strokes, but still… Remus was plagued by being a werewolf, and Peter…Peter she knew nothing about. Was he a muggle-born wizard?

"Where is home, Peter?" she asked. It was the gentlest her voice had ever been while speaking to him, and James and Sirius gave her sharp glances.

He blinked, as if uncertain what to do being addressed by her so directly, probably for the first time. "Er…Cornwall," he squeaked.

"Are your parents wizards?"

He nodded, and his face flickered, fear and something like a spiteful loathing flared briefly. "Dad works at the upper levels of the Ministry. Mum's works in Experimental Charms. Everyone says I'm a big disappointment because I'm no good at magic."

Hermione opened her mouth automatically to counter the pitiful statement, and closed it again, comfort dying before it could be voiced. For all that he was a wizard, and his wand occasionally produced results, it rarely operated to the desired effect. And the wand picked the wizard, or so Ollivander had said. Even Neville Longbottom's skills- admittedly fast improving in the past two years- were vastly superior.

"Where're you going, Sirius?" Hermione asked, as he was the only one who had not responded that he was going home.

"James' of course," he said with a wide smile. Then his face darkened, and for a moment he looked much more like the hard man who had hosted them during her fifth year. "I can't stand my house." It was clearly more than just a teen's rebellion against his parents, the bitterness there deep and solid, no passing fad or frivolous surface feeling. Lily eyed him from behind her book as if seeing him for the first time, and Hermione felt her throat close as she recalled the dark, heavy, dusty curtains and the mounted house-elf heads lining the corridor. She could not fault him for hating Grimmauld Place…

Awkward silence permeated the coach, and then, "So, Hermione- are you going to be visiting Flourish and Blotts over break?'

Sirius kicked him and Hermione rolled her eyes. He was worse than his son. The word subterfuge was obviously not in James' vocabulary, and Lily's eyes had lifted from where she had planted her short nose firmly in her book to give Hermione a skeptical look.

"Fancy James Potter knowing the name of a bookstore," Lily said coolly. "It doesn't even have any Bludgers to dodge."

James' cheeks filled with red, spilling into his forehead like a glass of punch overfilling, instantly distracting him from the bruise Sirius had given him with his none-too-stealthy reminder that there was someone in the car that had no idea what they were doing.

"Yes, I am," she said, so quietly she hoped it would end the subject. If her tone hadn't been enough, Sirius' warning hand on his wrist was. James asked no further questions, and once again the car descended into stillness, broken by the flickering paper-on-paper slide when Lily turned her pages.

Sirius ended the uneasy quiet by talking about the Tornados and their chances of winning in a minor league this year. The boys put their heads together to talk strategy, and Lily, eyes cutting towards them to establish that they were indeed well-ensconced in their plotting, and then turned to Hermione, whispering softly, "What about your present?"

Hermione withdrew the minute box. It was no longer than her middle finger, and three times as wide. She eyed it with some apprehension. She could not imagine what she might have done that would have prompted him to give her a gift, and especially not one in what looked like a jewelry box. Lifting it to her ear, she rattled it gently. Nothing inside it moved, and it was surprisingly heavy. Heavier than gems.

"What is that?" Remus surfaced from the conversation, attention caught by the flash of gold casting a rectangular bar of light on Hermione's throat. The source vanished quickly once again, and Lily glowered at him.

"It's nothing." His wounded expression prompted her to embellish slightly. "From one of my friends at my other school." It had exactly the effect intended. He smiled absently and dove back into the Quidditch.

To Lily's enquiring green eyes, Hermione mouthed, "Later." The younger girl tossed one more impatiently resentful glance at the boys and her thumb opened a book automatically, burying her once more in history.

Hermione's hand wrapped around the package, fingers encasing it so that the tips grazed the bottom of her palm. What was in it? She dared not activate it on the train, it might cause a disaster.

Yet, somehow, she didn't think so. He had been so painfully shy in giving it to her, thrusting it at her and bolting down the corridor, that she was almost certain it did not contain a hex or other unpleasant object. That was a Fred and George style gift. The generally dignified, aloof boy who had given her this was not a prankster.

Fred and George. The raw loneliness that robbed her of breath crashed over her in a wave. It had grown so rare, this stark homesickness, this feeling of missing not just something desperately important but the entirety of her world, that tears bubbled to her eyes instantly. The first Christmas in two years that she would not be at the Burrow, and the first in three that she would be away from Harry and Ron and most of the Weasley family.

Absurdly, her abrupt sense of loss culminated in the intense desire for some of Molly Weasley's mashed potatoes smothered in gravy made from chicken stock, and ebbed. She was in the train, going home with Lily Evans, and with a standing offer from three of the Marauders to call them if she needed company. She was hardly all on her own.

Her fingers were clasped around the box, clenched tight, the corners digging into her flesh. She loosened her grip, but did not let it go, the weight an anchor to now, the mystery a puzzle to occupy her brain. And she was good at puzzles.

888

Mrs. Evans was a slender woman, like her daughter, and her dark eyes snapped with the same intelligence and gentle spirit. But there the resemblance ended.

Mr. Evans was who Hermione saw first, standing nearly six and a half feet tall, with Lily's same red-brown hair and sparkling green eyes, his gaze sweeping the crowd for his youngest daughter. And skulking behind them, with none of the unbridled enthusiasm and eagerness of her parents, was Harry's to-be-aunt Petunia.

She was blond, like her mother, and clearly growing, taller already than the other woman, though her bent shoulders made her smaller, and her sulky mouth damaged features that might have been considered handsome enough.

Lily's parents stepped forward eagerly to embrace their daughter, and while Mr. Evans offered Hermione a friendly handshake, Mrs. Evans swept the girl into her arms as well. "And so pretty. Robert, look at this glorious hair!" Mrs. Evans exclaimed, examining Hermione's russet curls. Hermione's mouth twitched. _Her_ glorious hair? Lily had by far the most wonderful locks that she had ever laid eyes on.

"Lily tells us you're a transfer student?" Mrs. Evans started. Lily and her father exchanged a glance- so similar to Fred and George when Mrs. Weasley began harassing Harry that again Hermione lifted her hand to her mouth to hide her amusement.

"Yes. From America…" They walked down the platform to the car, two girls, the Evans' and Petunia, far at the back, lagging behind and glaring after them, as if afraid that sharing their air might transmute some unforgivable disease.

888

"Why would Snape give you a present?" Lily asked as they unpacked their trunks in her room. Petunia had flatly refused to share space after Lily had been accepted at Hogwarts, so Hermione and Lily easily fit in Lily's room.

"Erm…" Hermione could not think of a way to explain her connection with the boy. It hadn't seemed strong enough to warrant a gift, but perhaps what he had given her was a trifle…

"I don't know really," Hermione said slowly. "We've talked a few times…that's all. Oh – and he helped me out when Malfoy was being a scumbag." Lily frowned.

"Maybe it's not safe," she said hesitantly. "You're top of our year, and before you came, he was…he might not like the competition. You should probably have opened it at school just in case…"

"No. I'm sure it's all right," Hermione replied, shaking her head. Snape would not have given her a prank gift. Not and delivered it the way he had.

888

It was the owl that did it.

They had survived quite well for the first three days, ignoring Petunia's petulance, her slamming door, her heavy-handed footfalls just shy of stomping. Hermione felt embarrassed only for her parents, and then simply because the Evans' were so obviously distressed and mortified by their daughter's behavior. It was the first time Lily had had the nerve to bring home a friend to face her sister's censure, and it was proving a difficult trial.

"She's just…it's taking her a little time to adjust to Lily's talents," Mrs. Evans had assured her, a little nervously when they had entered the house and Petunia had instantly vanished without so much as a "How d'you do?"

"Of course," Hermione accepted with a grace that surprised the older woman. "How old is she?" She didn't know if Petunia was older or younger than her sister. Harry had never said.

"Oh, thirteen, same as Lily," Mrs. Evans replied with some surprise. "Lily didn't tell you they were twins?"

Hermione's eyes widened. Twins? But they looked so-

"Fraternal, obviously," Lily beat her to the question.

But the owl that arrived the fourth morning of their stay during a breakfast of French toast and eggs tapped on the window right behind her, sparking a shriek, the splattering of toast caked in butter and doused with syrup against her skirt, and the subsequent cries of dismay as Hermione hastily rose and allowed the bird inside. It added insult to injury by misjudging it's landing and sending Petunia's orange juice to join her syrup-butter skirt, and she burst into tears. The owl startled at suddenly having a wailing girl behind it, and rose in a flutter, wingtips brushing Petunia's face so that she screamed again and batted at it with her hands.

Hermione quickly held out her arm, the owl perched, back to Petunia to indicate its displeasure, and extended one leg. Hermione winced as the bird's balance shifted and it dug one clutch of talons into her forearm. But a few scratches were infinitely preferable to Petunia's continued hysteria, and she bit her tongue, smiling her thanks at the owl and untying the letter before breaking off a bit of toast. It glared at her balefully with yellow eyes as she brought the sweet concoction to its mouth, and she sighed, setting it down.

"Mrs. Evans, do you have any bacon or sausage? Owls like meat."

Lily's mother beamed at the grouchy creature and bustled into the kitchen to retrieve the requested item. Petunia's tears had stopped by now and her eyes were locked- not on the animal, but on Hermione, with loathing. Suddenly, Hermione was very glad she had never encountered Harry's aunt as an adult. Remus, Sirius, and her professors knew and understood enough to be circumspect, but she doubted the Muggle woman would be so reactionless had she encountered her in the future.

Her face splotchy, Petunia turned to her father, rage replacing the frustration in her eyes.

"It comes clean," he placated quickly. "Your mum is a dab hand at mending and cleaning, Petunia, you know that. She'll have it clean in a mo." For so large a man, he had proven remarkably soft-spoken and was clearly the peace-keeper in the brood of females.

"If they're so special, and they can do magic, why can't they clean it?" she challenged.

Hermione sighed. "We could if we were at school. Underage magic is not allowed where Muggles can see us- in other words, outside of Hogwarts."

"Convenient," she responded icily.

"Petunia- Hermione didn't make the mess!" Lily swiftly rode to her friend's defense.

"That beast she's cradling did," her sister snarled. "And it clearly came for her."

Hermione tossed a glance at the handwriting. Remus' painstakingly neat lines marked the parchment.

"Remus," she told Lily, and a sudden snort of amusement had to be stifled. What on earth would Petunia say if she knew the owl had been sent not by any old wizard but one who was also a werewolf?

Mrs. Evans hurried back out with the bacon, and hesitated, eyeing the owl. In spite of the fact that Lily had received several owls a summer for the past two years, her mother had never touched one of them, and the curved, incisive beak gave her significant pause.

Petunia waited intently for her mother to notice her, knew it was not going to happen, thrust the napkin still gripped in one hand on the table, and fled upstairs. Her mother and her father both watched her go, pained expression on their faces. Hermione saws the bird take note of the bacon, and knew that Mrs. Evans was shortly to lose her fingers to a hungry hunter.

"It's all right, Mrs. Evans. The owl came for me, I should feed it." Taking the bacon, she fed the bird, who gobbled it eagerly, hooted gently, dunked its beak in Hermione's water, and flew out the still-open window.

"Who's it from dear? Do you have a sweetheart?"

"Erm…no. It's from a friend of ours at school," Hermione quickly replied, reaching to break the seal.

"It's from Remus," she recounted to Lily as she scanned it, "and he wants to know if we can meet him in Diagon Alley."

"What do you have to get there?" Lily asked.

"A book for extra Arithmancy study," Hermione lied.

888

Hermione had never visited Diagon Alley over Christmas. The Alley, sunny and hot whenever she stepped through the brick and into molten light for back-to-school supplies, looked perversely odd covered with snow, flakes falling thick, fast and silent, the circular beams of the streetlamps casting pools of light to punctuate the blue-tinted darkness of the landscape.

And, as in her own time, the overwhelming stench of fear in the Alley turned her gut. The gaiety that Christmas brought out at Hogwarts was muted here- a string of lights, a few steady candles, a wreath already half snow-covered. But the shuttered windows, locked doors and drawn curtains told the story underneath the few sad, neglected attempts at decoration.

The terror instilled by the attack on the Alley at the beginning of the year had changed the face of the once-cheerful winding corridor of shops, and Hermione's loathing for the Death Eaters spiked again as faces peered around drapes at them as they trudged through the snow, other witches and wizards giving the two girls, and everyone else, a wide berth. Hermione smiled at a golden-haired girl no older than six, and as a gap-toothed grin responded, the girl pulled away, arm tugged by a harried witch who shot Hermione a look of deep mistrust.

Lily stared in distress. "Trina and I came here last year," she whispered, her voice rough as if she were about to cry. "It was so…it was alive, Hermione. Every shop had a pennant as well as a sign, and fairies twinkled everywhere for the season, and…"

"I know," Hermione responded softly. _Fortescue was always so cheerful with Astronomy, and Madam Malkin's shop stood wide open for everyone. The emporium was decked with colors and flags and signs for familiars and pets. And even Gringotts…_the goblin-run bank was barely visible through the snow, and it looked chilled, dead, a deserted bastion, remnant of a grander time. Two realities warred for space in Hermione's brain, warm memory and cold present, the difference in the Alley so shocking she nearly turned to check the sign that arched over the entryway, wishing that they had stumbled into the wrong place, the oppressiveness of the air so much more suited to Knockturn Alley.

_The whole of Britain will be like this if we lose_, Hermione thought bleakly, and as a customer hurried out of a shop, the door slamming behind him in testament to the thinness of Christmas spirit this season, Hermione felt that if Harry didn't kill Voldemort, she would.

The silence between them had changed, and Hermione hadn't noticed, but Lily was staring at her, both arched eyebrows drawn, studying Hermione's face. The furrow in her brow and the sorrow in her eyes betrayed her, and Lily wondered yet again where her friend had actually come from. It was clear from the ache exuding from the drawn mouth that Hermione knew the alley, knew what to expect when it was whole, and that the silent misery bore on her with a weight that came only with the unexpected and dramatic change of the familiar.

But something of Hermione's solemnity stilled Lily's questions, and it occurred to the girl for the first time that Hermione might be older than she was- not by a mere few years, though that, too, could be true- but by decades or centuries, or even millennia. She knew too much for the average third-year, even Lily, who had always been the best of their Gryffindor class, felt that Hermione had more experience at living – that her book knowledge came almost as a side-effect of something else.

The snow packed beneath their feet, crunching downwards as they made their way towards the closed and locked bookshop, shivering in their cloaks as they waited for their raps to be answered. A face peered around the curtain that covered the door, seemed to assess them, determine they were of little danger, and furtively swung the door open, inviting them in with a jerky, birdlike movement of his hand, fearful and hurried. The responded in kind, hunching into the shop, the door closing so quickly behind them it nearly nicked their heels.

"Sorry to trouble you, sir," Hermione began carefully. Her respectful foray brought the reaction she sought. The man, stooped in worry, stood up straight. He was aging- just at that time of life when he had enough silver shot through his hair to make him dignified, but not enough wrinkles or extra skin flapping at his jowls to make him old. She did not recognize him, and assumed he was likely the father of one of the future proprietors.

"Hermione?" a figure rushed towards them from the bookshelves, and Hermione smiled. Remus.

"Hi, Remus!" she greeted him cheerfully.

"So this is the friend you were waiting for," the owner said with some satisfaction. He gave Lily a quizzical look. "You didn't say there would be two of them."

"I didn't know," Remus apologized.

"No harm done, lad. They seem perfectly respectable. I offer you my apologies, ladies, for my slowness in opening the door, but the Death Eaters…"

"We understand, sir," Hermione replied quietly, and her tone held an underlying hint of steel that made it clear she did, indeed, completely understand.

"I've been checking up on the list you gave me," Remus instantly presented her with a stack of books as the owner smiled and returned to his polished wood counter. Hermione winced as Lily arched an eyebrow.

"Arithmancy? These look like Transfiguration to me." Her voice contained both question and challenge, and Hermione was tired of lying. "Animagi?" Lily was staring with avid interest at the books Remus cradled. The boy was looking nervously from one girl to the next, uncertain what to say, knowing from listening to James and Sirius stick their metaphorical feet down their esophagi that boys often only made things worse when they opened their mouths.

"These are part of what we need," Hermione flipped her hand carelessly. "But the more important books are in the Arithmancy section."

"I only beat you here by a few minutes," Remus cottoned on quickly. "I haven't had a chance to peruse those shelves yet."

Hermione thanked whichever god oversaw her fate for her newest theory- that becoming an Animagi would, in fact, involve arithmantic equations, giving her a real reason to purchase a book or two from the shelves. Professor McGonagall had given her the titles of a half-dozen books, but she did not believe for one instant that one would contain all of the information necessary for practical application, or that even all six together would provide every piece. And since most animals were either larger or smaller than humans, there was at least some mass displacement with every transformation, the greater the difference in weight, the more the mass that had to be accounted for.

She marched to the Arithmancy books on a shelf towards the middle of the store and started flipping through indices. "What are we looking for specifically?" Remus muttered.

"Mass Displacement Theory and Human Transfiguration Technique," she replied out of the corner of her mouth.

"Why?" It had been too much to hope that Lily's attuned ears would not hear her words. "Mass Displacement? How much are you planning to transfigure, Hermione?"

"Big things," Hermione replied vaguely.

"Hermione Jane Granger," the red-head snapped, "If you think I'm going to buy that load of bollocks, I suggest you think again."

Green eyes blazed with a ferocity that Hermione had only seen in Harry during his campaigns for Quidditch, and it quelled her, knowing the formidable force of mind behind that gaze.

Remus was watching them, face wrinkled in worry and fear. _No wonder Snape doesn't like Gryffindors. We lack subtlety_, Hermione thought. If Remus wasn't careful, he'd give the game away himself.

"Look, it's something for Snape," Hermione told Lily in a hushed voice. The red-head gave her an incisive look- Hermione's partial avoidance of her eyes was mistaken for embarrassment, and the hesitation to tell her led Lily to clap her hands over her mouth in delight as Hermione passed her test.

"Snape? But why does Remus have a list?" she asked, derailed as suspicion returned.

"It's for us too, but the transfiguration and mass stuff is for Snape. He gave me a present, and he already knows all about Potions and the Dark Arts-" Mentioning the gold package Hermione still hadn't unwrapped had the immediate intended effect. Lily forgot about Snape and mass and transfiguration as she returned to the mystery. Hermione wondered if she'd been so single-mindedly distractible when she was thirteen, and if she had been, how often had her teachers used this same technique?

"What's in it?" the girl pressed hopefully.

"I haven't opened it yet. I told you, Christmas. You'll know as soon as I do."

"Snape gave you a present?" Hermione clamped down the instinct to groan aloud. No peace at all between these two, it was battling two fronts. Lily who knew nothing of the Animagi, and Remus who knew nothing of her two unexpected gifts, one anonymous and another one that Snape had shoved into her hand. She reluctantly turned back to her gentle friend, who had frozen with a promising book half-off the shelf, staring at her intently.

"Erm…yes."

"Why?"

"I don't know," she admitted.

"It might be dangerous. You shouldn't open it in a Muggle house," Remus said with unusual vehemence. "But…my dad might be able to take a look at it for you, make sure it's safe," he offered, his customary manner returning.

Hermione smiled ruefully and shook her head. "No. It wasn't like that…he's not James or Sirius, who I would expect to give me itching powder or a quill that spurts ink all over my bag or a book with- shall we say interesting- pop-outs. It's a real present."

"If you're sure," he swallowed. "I think this book has some of what we want," he focused suddenly on the black binding, pulling it all the way out and flipping to the index, allowing his search in the book to bury his disappointment and hide the briefly flaring jealousy that he knew poisoned his eyes.

888

The store owner smiled at them as they came forth with their books. Books were expensive, and though on the train Sirius had offered to pay for the lot by diverting a small sum from his family's fortune, Hermione had shaken her head. They were all useful titles, but in the end they purchased four books- three were Transfiguration and Arithmancy texts for becoming Animagi, which Remus quickly wrapped in a bag to keep Lily from putting two-and-two together.

He needn't have worried. Lily's attention belonged to the slim, spell-locked fourth volume, a book with a series of enchantments around it. The man behind the counter arched an eyebrow. "This is a difficult book to open," he warned, amusement in his eyes.

"I know. The…opener, is up to the challenge, I believe," Hermione replied, smiling.

"I see." The crinkled corners of his eyes sharpened as he put it carefully in a bag and handed it to her. "Happy hunting."

She grinned widely, and the three started for the exit.

"Hold on," the owner stopped them, hurrying forward, placing himself in front of the children to peek around the drawn curtains again. "Too much mischief about these days," he murmured, only partially to them. "I wouldn't want to see your young faces in the morning _Prophet_ under a nasty headline." A thorough checking of the street assured him that they were, indeed, allowed to leave. And as the door opened to admit the cold in a swirl of flakes, a niggling thought that had finally jostled to the front of Hermione's brain, asked:

"Sir? Who fought the Death Eaters during their attack months ago?'

His face passed through startled, cheerless, fearful and finally, rueful as he decided to answer her question. "Death Eaters? No one knows. The attackers weren't Death Eaters, leastways, not at this end of the alley. The men who took apart Lady Arjou's Asian Jewelers had no masks- and they wore red. Dark red. Not black. And they fought in the middle of the street, much closer to the Leaky Cauldron- but it wasn't the Ministry. They destroyed the alley as much as they hurt the Death Eaters." He shivered, and the glaze over his eyes told them he was seeing another time on this street. "They…I supposed one could call it singing…as they attacked," he related quietly. "Some of the most violent harmonies I've ever heard. And as they sang, apartments came undone, ceilings smashed into floors, merchandise shattered windows, into the street- the whole of Lady Arjou's store was smashed on the cobblestones. I don't even begin to know what magic spared me." His face twisted with irony at the remembrance.

He shook himself furiously. "Dangerous stuff, music. The Ministry's got the right idea – keep it all under lock and key. I can't even listen to WWN anymore." In another time and place, Hermione would have objected that WWN's crooning witches and whining warlocks did not constitute music, but now the thought did not so much as enter her mind.

Lily and Remus were both staring at the man, and then turned to Hermione. She nodded slowly at him, fear causing her throat to spasm closed. "Thank you," she grunted hoarsely, and they finished leaving the shop, the door closing behind them silently.

"What did he mean?" Remus asked.

"Red cloaks," Hermione whispered hollowly, all sense of merriment vanished, she cursed her stupidity- all that time closeted and learning about the Echo- she could have asked so many questions! They had been ordered there to find her and Dumbledore had gotten in their way, kept her safe…what if they were, in fact, seekers of the knowledge that Grindelwald had buried with him? Mroczek had ordered her to be extremely cautious, but it seemed that warning was more to save his own skin, and allow him to do things like this…

As the oppressive silence of the alley fell around them again, hatred boiled anew, and this time not just for Voldemort.

_They attacked using music. No wonder they don't want us learning how. Not a very good weapon if the most powerful controller on earth can counter it_, she thought bitterly.

"Red cloaks…Hermione, the inspectors!" Lily cried. "The ones at Hogwarts – they wore red." There was fear in her voice that Hermione could not quite place, but she didn't have time to think about that now…

"Lots of people wear red," Remus was reasoning. "They could have been doing anything…and there's no real reason for musicians to be at Hogwarts, is there? I mean, it's not like we're allowed to have classes in the stuff." He turned to Hermione to ask her opinion.

But as he opened his mouth, Hermione turned abruptly and started towards the far end of the Alley and the Post Office, where she could rent an owl for a few Knuts. She had to send a letter…

Upon reaching the door, having left Lily and Remus some ten feet behind her at an unconscious rapid pace, Hermione's eye caught a flash of white-gold, a streak of light piercing the snow-darkened Alley to her left…

She spun, her mission briefly interrupted as her body followed her sight to watch Lucius Malfoy, no more than twenty yards away in the gloom. She sneered at his vanity. It took spells to make your hair shine without the help of sunlight, and the sheen that looked so natural in the summer popped out awkwardly in storm-covered Knockturn Alley.

As she watched, he removed something bulky, and oddly familiar, from his robes, handing into a shadow- that suddenly grew a clawed hand as it darted forward to seize the heavy-looking object. A hiss of displeasure, Malfoy withdrew his hand as if burned, and muttered something unintelligible. As he strode- or slogged- down the twisted alley, Hermione watched the shade he had handed it to shrink the large, awkward burden, and in the moment before it shrunk to fit in the palm of his hand, the light from the spell illumined it brightly and she recognized it.

A hard protective case, molded imprecisely around an irregular shape that ended with a curved bell. It was a saxophone.

A shipment of instruments had vanished en route to England, Mroczek had told her when he was talking about the potential dangers that accompanied playing music. Most likely stolen. Now she wondered whether Mroczek was the man who had ordered it done.

But regardless of that, Lucius was clearly involved. Make that two things to write to Snape about. As Knockturn Alley cleared, she pushed open the door to the Post Office.

888

Hermione awoke groggily on Christmas morning, cold seeping through the snugly-fastened window near the bed the Evans' had set up for her in Lily's room.

"Pssst. Hermione."

"Mmmph."

"Are you awake?"

"Hmmphg."

"It's Christmas."

"That….mm-yaaah….so?" Hermione shoved her fingers into the corners of her eyes, pulling sleep from the corners.

"Present." Lily was referring not to the presents tumbled together under the tree, but the gold-covered box nestled in Hermione's trunk.

"Mmhmm. All in good time." Hermione was thoroughly enjoying dragging this out. Lack of female friends had left her bereft of this particular brand of women's nosiness and persistence, and torturing Lily with the much-speculated upon contents of the box was all that had kept her from opening it days ago.

"You promised." Lily was poised on the edge of her bed, leaning forward towards Hermione's trunk, an Irish Setter eager for the hunt.

"I know." Hermione lazily dragged her feet around to touch the floor- and swiftly shot them back under the covers, shivering. She gathered the comforter to her body and glowered at Lily.

"Cold."

"It's Christmas. There's snow outside." Lily's voice held no compassion or caring and her green eyes barely flickered from the trunk.

"You know, Lily, I'm starting to think that you only invited me so that you could have a look at what's in that box," Hermione teased.

Lily finally tore her gaze from the trunk containing the object of her curiosity and arched an eyebrow. "I invited you _before_ Snape gave you that miserable box. I just want to know what's in it."

Comforter wrapped firmly about her like very bulky robes, Hermione crossed the five feet to her trunk, opened the lid, and withdrew the box. "Budge up," she grunted to Lily as she started for the other girl's bed. Lily scooted sideways, head bent to the package obscured by Hermione's hands.

"You are so nosy," Hermione groused playfully.

This garnered no reply, for her fingers were already slitting the tape. She was grateful that Lily didn't rush her in her careful unwrapping as she had before. It reminded her of Harry and Ron – the boys almost always had all their presents opened before she had even managed to unwrap two. But Lily traced every movement of her fingers, the meticulous parting of the tape from the wrapping, leaving the gold intact and unblemished.

As the gold fell away, a tiny box made of mahogany shone in the thin light filtering through the curtains. It was unmarked, just a smooth-grained rectangle of dark wood with a fitted lid. And after a moment of wiggling to loosen it, the lid came off as well.

The box was lined with parchment that had been written on, and in the middle of the parchment nested a tiny golden harp. Lily lifted her eyes to Hermione coolly as the older girl's hand flew to her mouth, stifling the gasp of surprise.

"So you _don't_ play an instrument?"

Hermione hesitated, but it seemed that now was the time to tell the truth. "I do," she admitted.

"I think I'd gathered," Lily replied, in that same slightly cold voice. Her eyes were already glazing with hurt and withdrawal, and Hermione could hear that it was time for her to explain quickly or lose her only female friend.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before…when the music went everywhere, but…it's illegal, and I haven't really told anyone."

"Except one Severus Snape." The distinct chill coating Lily's words told Hermione that her fumbling explanation wasn't convincing the younger girl of anything. "The only Hogwarts student to be widely disliked by just about everyone."

"I – well…" Hermione threw caution out the window, along with common sense, and said, "He plays too. Clarinet. And his cousin, Klytemnestra, plays viola. And I'm sure the other twin must, but I've never heard her play. Maybe flute…Snape said he heard one…"

To her surprise, Lily blushed and looked away, and something about the sudden drop of her eyes clicked together with the slight, half-afraid, half-eager tone in her voice when she had seen _The Rite of Spring_ and asked, _"Do you play?" _ "You do too!" Hermione exclaimed. "You're it, aren't you? The flute player we've been wondering about?"

"Shhh!" Lily said fiercely, and stopped her gesture towards the door with an embarrassed smile. "I guess it doesn't matter if they hear," she jerked her head towards the stairs that led to the rest of the family. "They bought it for me, after all, it's not like they don't know."

Hermione laughed. "And _you_ were angry at _me_ for not telling you?"

"Oh, all right," Lily grumbled. But it was good natured, and both girls were once again staring at the pure gold instrument lying in the box. Lily reached for it, paused, murmured, "May I?" and received Hermione's nod of assent before delicate fingers lifted the harp. It was no longer than a single joint on her long finger, and only half again as wide, the arched gold of the body meeting the glimmering knobs that were the pegs, miniature yellow strings imprinting tiny grooves on her index finger.

Hermione tore her attention from the miracle of the harp to scrape out the parchment that had been shoved underneath the tiny replica of her instrument and unfold it.

The harp can be played. On the back are four different spells to transfigure and enlarge it into a full-size instrument. I would have given you a real one, but they are heinously expensive and extraordinarily difficult to come by.

True to his awkward, brief form, it was unsigned. Her eyes widened, and her sucking breath shifted Lily's attention from the toy-sized piece in her hand to the parchment in Hermione's lap.

"It works?" Almost unconsciously, Lily reached for her wand, only to find Hermione's hand firmly around her wrist. The old girl shook her head regretfully.

"No magic outside of school. The Improper Use of Magic Office will take your wand."

Lily stared at her. "You're not going to even _try_ it?"

"And cause Petunia another fit when the owl arrives fifteen minutes from now on Christmas morning? I don't think your parents will be inviting me back."

Lily waved that away with fluttering hands. Hermione captured the one cradling her harp. "Let me see it."

Lily gave over the treasure with a smile that carried a hint of knowing. "I can't believe _he_ gave that to you."

"Me neither," Hermione agreed. But the detached quality to her voice told Lily that she hadn't caught the other girl's meaning, too wrapped up in the details of examining her brand-new treasure.

Lily debated as to whether she should hint again, but another question popped through her mouth before she could. "Do you think he gave you the music too?"

Hermione wished that she could say yes, but something about the music was too… cautious. Too distant. Almost as though someone had placed a firecracker on a burning log from one hundred meters away and was waiting to see the result. She believed that Snape-the-man would have no trouble doing exactly that. But Snape-the-boy still wore just enough of his heart on his sleeve that she doubted it. And sheet music was incriminating evidence. A solid gold harp smaller than her pinkie was not.

"No," she answered finally. "No, I don't think so. And I should get rid of it – thank you for reminding me. No one will think anything of it if I leave it in a Muggle house."

"Get rid of it?" Lily gasped.

"_The Rite of Spring_, not the harp," Hermione clarified.

Lily opened her mouth to object and hastily closed it again when her mother popped her head in the door.

"Oh good, girls, you're up. Dad has breakfast ready. Don't you want to open presents?"

Snape and _The Rite of Spring_ would clearly have to wait for another time.

888

The owl beat at the window. Eileen Snape scowled as she rose, only to have her sister signal her imperiously back into her seat.

"Nobby will get it," the older woman told her imperiously. From their places down the tables, Severus, Klytemnestra, Kassandra and their older brother, Sebastian, lifted their heads with the rest of the table- an assembly of some forty Zabini's living in England, the standard size of a Christmas dinner at the Zabini estate- eyes on the tawny creature obscuring most of the otherwise grey sky visible through the lattice.

And indeed, a well-trained house-elf quickly seized a short, polished wooden ladder, nipped up the rungs, and swung the window open, perfunctorily seizing the letter and tendering a treat at the same time. The bird flew off, the window closed and latched, and Nobby presented the prize to his mistress with a bow.

"Very efficient," Eileen murmured dryly. Not a single feather had so much as blown through the window.

"House elves usually are," her sister replied, turning over the letter. Her eyebrows arched in surprise and her gaze shot to the end of the table.

"Severus, it's for you."

Severus' eyes widened, and his aunt's next words and sharp eyes hardly helped. "And unless I am much mistaken, it's from a girl." It was Klytemnestra and Kassandra's turn to give him the same stare that their mother had pinned on him, though Klytemnestra had a knowing smile playing around her mouth and gently crinkling the corners of her eyes.

But his own mother laughed. "You must jest, Elizabeth. Severus looks entirely too much like his father."

"Yet his father is a father- so it is clear that some women are attracted to the Snape complexion," his aunt returned smartly, but not unkindly. Indeed, her usually shrewd eyes were soft as she looked on her only blood nephew. The Zabini family was vast, and she had no shortage of nieces and nephews by marriage, but Severus was her single nephew by blood, with the eyes that had passed from her mother to his mother to him, and she was fond of him. What he did not know was that she offered, every year with growing concern, that he and Eileen, or at least he, be removed from Spinner's End where his increasingly violent father threatened far worse than verbal abuse to his son and offered it to his wife.

Severus stood, placing his napkin on the table politely, and traversed the long table to his aunt, enthroned in the chair to the right of the head of the table, inhabited, as always, by his uncle.

"Thank you, Aunt Elizabeth," he said solemnly. She gave him a brief smile, small on the mouth but warm in the eyes.

As he took the parchment, the babble of general conversation broke again, a few curious glances punctuating his journey back to his place with his cousins. Sebastian was too well trained and cared too little about his cousin to ask, but the twins had no such restraint, and instantly leaned over to look.

"Who?" Kassandra asked as she looked at the neat line stating the recipient's name.

Unaccountably, their cousin blushed furiously. "I don't know," he lied, voice even in spite of his embarrassment. He was sure he recognized that neat print. But even Klytemnestra had not been told of the gift he had given her, and he was not going to inform them at the family table.

"Are you going to open it here?" Klytemnestra asked as he picked up his knife.

"Why not?" he replied. He pushed the sharp edge through wax hardened by a flight through the cold, and unfolded it.

The message was extremely short, cryptic, and he noted with a faint surprise laced strongly with disappointment, that she did not mention the gift he had given her at all. Instead, the ruler-edged writing read:

The people in red at school attacked Diagon Alley. L.M. had sax, gave in KA.

Severus' eyes widened and he passed the letter to his cousins. They scanned it.

"What, they were just attacked?" Klytemnestra whispered.

"No, it's past tense. I think she means the attack on the alley at the beginning of the year," Severus countered.

But Kassandra had re-read the next line, and felt her stomach heave. L.M. That could only be one person…and he had a saxophone. _"I got it from Russia."_ She rose suddenly, almost tripping in her haste, face unhealthily pallid.

"Dear-" her mother started from the far end of the table.

"Sorry, something didn't agree with me," she barely managed to gasp out as she sprinted from the room. She stopped in the hallway, legs shaking so badly she thought they might give way, fighting the urge to vomit. And she had trusted him. Maybe even started to love him…

But he had always been interested in information. Always music. A series of late afternoons closeted behind heavy, forest-green velvet curtains shafted through her mind, his body spread lazily, somehow managing to take up almost all of the four poster, her darker skinned arms contrasting with his pale torso as they lay entangled and sated. And somehow she had never put together, never really thought about their topic of conversation. The questions he asked, the delicate hints that he dropped…and she had answered him, believing his interest in her sincere…

"What was that?" Severus asked, disconcerted.

Klytemnestra was staring out the door where her twin had vanished, disgust vying with concern. She knew of her sister's fascination with the son of Abraxas, but had not thought it to be more than an infatuation – an opinion she was now considering revising. She barely registered her cousin's question, and heard herself answer as if from a long tunnel. "Something to do with Lucius Malfoy."


	12. Unpleasant Revelations: I

Disclaimer: Clearly not mine, all respects paid to the proper creators.

A/N: Enjoy! And please review!

Unpleasant Revelations

Kassandra turned over in her bed miserably, ignoring the soft tapping at the door that told her Klytemnestra was on the other side. There would be questions regarding her sudden departure and continued isolation, but she felt like her humiliation had been branded on her forehead for all to see…she had been right before, she was just a conquest…and through her mind, repeating in a maddening mantra, ran her single, embittered question:

_How can I have been so stupid?_

"Kass?" her twin's voice was soft, and Kassandra's stomach clenched as she lay on her side, facing away from her sister, hoping that Kly would believe her asleep.

She was not to be so lucky.

"Kass, Mum and Dad are worried about you. The house-elves are being interrogated right now about how they cooked the food."

Kassandra snorted. The food was fine, which ought to be clear since dozens of other people had eaten it.

"This is about Malfoy, isn't it?"

Kassandra tensed, and Klytemnestra watched her spine straighten even as she lay curled in a fetal position.

"What about Malfoy?"

"He had the saxophone in Diagon Alley, the letter said so," Klytemnestra replied, and Kassandra could tell that she was trying to be gentle. But disgust leaked into her voice nevertheless, and shame twisted more hotly, consuming Kassandra's insides, making her skin itch with impurity.

Suddenly, the black eyes flew open, and Kassandra sat up, flipping her long legs around. "Who sent that letter?"

Klytemnestra's mouth twitched. She could guess, both from her cousin's reaction and the subject, that the sender was one rufous-maned Gryffindor witch. But their playing had been kept private – in part because Klytemnestra knew her sister wouldn't approve, and she was especially reluctant now to reveal the information.

"I don't know," she lied blandly. "You should ask Severus."

Kassandra stared at her twin sharply, irritation rising. "You do know! Who?"

"If you're not going to tell me why you slept with Lucius Malfoy, I see no reason to enlighten you as to who sent our cousin a letter with such critical information." Klytemnestra's voice was cold, and she plunged on after a moment's hesitation – it wouldn't save Kass' feelings not to say it all right now. "We have to tell Dad about Malfoy, too, Kass…Father can't not know that at least some of the stolen shipment of instruments is being moved through Knockturn Alley."

Kassandra winced, and Klytemnestra's eyes grew wintry. "So…sister…why _did_ you sleep with Lucius Malfoy? Knowing, after all, that he is no more than a womanizer and a snake." She had prayed she was wrong, that Kassandra was merely in lust, that the boy had left her so far untouched…but the time that Kassandra took to answer betrayed the reality, and Klytemnestra clenched her teeth, bile rising in her throat.

"How did you know?" Kass sighed, picking at a string on her bedspread.

"You just told me," Klytemnestra replied.

Kassandra glowered at her. "It was a shot in the dark," her twin expanded. "You've been head over heels for him since our third year. I didn't think he'd – you'd-" the thought was so distasteful that Klytemnestra couldn't finish it.

"Just because you won't touch anyone doesn't mean I have to be a puritan," Kassandra spat furiously.

"Just because _I_ have standards doesn't mean _you_ have to be a whore!" Klytemnestra fired, stung. "LUCIUS MALFOY? What about him seemed like a good idea to you?"

Kassandra folded her arms mutinously, mouth opening again as their younger cousin walked through the door.

"A locked door doesn't indicate to you that you should stay out?" Klytemnestra turned her fury on Severus.

"No. Locks are there to be _Alohomora'_d. Not that it matters. Your voice is carrying three floors. They can hear you in the drawing room. That's what I came to tell you."

Kassandra's face skipped pale in favor of going to stark white. "What?"

"Not specific words, but yelling, yes."

Kassandra reddened in embarrassment and anger, but quickly returned, "Who sent you the letter?"

"Someone who wouldn't want Lucius Malfoy to know that I got it," he responded, and though his tone was neutral, his black eyes expressively said what he thought of her – or of anyone who thought the Malfoy heir was worth giving the time of day, much less worth having sex with. Kassandra's lungs failed to work for a moment, struck by the pronouncement of silence from her young cousin, scorn practically radiating visibly from him.

"I will be upstairs," he told Klytemnestra quietly, and left the room without another glance at the second twin.

Kassandra lifted her gaze to her sister's, and the disappointment there hammered her harshly, flatness taking the place of Klytemnestra's usual liveliness in her black eyes.

"You cannot split your loyalties, Kass," she said as she shuffled toward the door. "If you don't tell Father tomorrow, I will. About Malfoy. And you."

888

Fresh snow had fallen in Hogsmeade the night before their return from Christmas, and the thousand students that attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were a solid mass of black wool rumbling across the landscape, carriages manned by teachers coming out to meet them, Magical Law Enforcement standing by. For more than a year, Lord Voldemort had been mounting attacks by terror, and witches in Britain feared a strike on their children at this, their most vulnerable juncture.

But for all the official-looking wizards wearing dark green robes and expressions so grim they rivaled Trewlaney predicting the end of Harry's life, the transfer from train to carriage to Great Hall was accomplished with little fuss and no danger.

Hermione spied Snape through the crowd, together with one of his two cousins. Though she still had difficulty telling them apart, Hermione thought that it was the girl who played viola. She toyed with the idea of catching up to them, but getting to Snape in the crowd would be difficult-

"-you didn't respond to them."

A voice that she hadn't missed at all sounded behind her, and Hermione winced. Malfoy. She'd just gotten off the train. Beside her, Lily slotted her eyes, hearing and recognizing the wealthy, dangerous boy.

"I didn't want to. Shove off!" a semi-familiar voice hissed in return. Hermione hesitated, the bodies pushing past her were pulling her forward, away from Malfoy and his reluctant conversant.

Under the cover of looking for James, Sirius and Remus, Hermione turned full around, craning over the crowd, seeking faces under their black pointed hats.

Malfoy was perhaps five feet away, his low voice mostly covered by other chatter, and he was talking to…the other Zabini twin. Likely the one who had spent much of her time this past term glaring at Hermione.

The Gryffindor's interest sharpened, and she nudged Lily's ribs, jerking her chin in the direction of the furiously whispering pair, bright blond and night-dark locks almost tangling with their closeness. His hand was closed around her upper arm, and as Hermione watched, her body jerked in the tell-tale sign of attempted escape.

Recalling Macnair's and Malfoy's ambush of her in the village that fall, her stomach roiled. She started forward, against the tide of heavy cloaks that buffeted her shoulders and wrenched her back and forth. Behind her, she heard Lily mutter an expletive as the younger, red-haired witch followed in her wake.

"After what I gave you…?" Malfoy's voice sounded wounded now.

"Stolen merchandise does not qualify as a gift, Malfoy!" the Zabini girl snarled.

"More unwanted attentions, Malfoy?" Hermione's voice froze the struggling couple, the snow raised by their twisting cloaks settling slowly. Hermione's wand was out, pointing directly at Malfoy's heart. "You seem to have this problem often. Charms wearing thin? Or is it that your lies simply shine through them?"

Lily sucked in her breath in a low hiss at Hermione's back, but the older girl kept her gaze on the black crowned head of the Zabini as she turned slowly to stare at the Gryffindor witch who had so unexpectedly come to her aid. Kassandra suddenly recalled not only Lucius' interest in this girl, but also moments when she had seen her young cousin eyes locked on the transfer student and her own curiosity sharpened. Hermione arched an eyebrow as recognition sparked in the Italian witch's eyes and gratitude warred with the envy from the previous term.

Charm had vanished from the slate-grey eyes of Lucius Malfoy, and his well-shaped hands released the Zabini girl, twitching as if he desired to place them around Hermione's throat and throttle her. Gone was the beguiling, mannered son of the Malfoy fortune who had paid such delicate attention to her before, and in his place stood a predator, teeth bared in a feral gesture, fury gathering in his storm-colored gaze.

Hermione coolly held her place, meeting his glare with brown eyes that promised confidence beyond her supposed years, six years of magical and survival training hidden in their depths. She did not fear the boy – he still had much to learn before he would be the man whom she had last seen in the Department of Mysteries and was currently resigned to sitting in Azkaban, having been caught squarely at the site where Voldemort had materialized within the Ministry itself. Here and now, he was only a seventh-year student, surrounded by other students and in the midst of the entire Hogwarts staff.

"Sticking your nose where it doesn't belong?" he sneered. "I don't believe I asked you to grace us with your presence."

"Oddly enough, as human beings aren't house elves, I don't need your invitation to be anywhere, Malfoy." Hermione jerked her head at the Zabini girl. "I think she wanted you to leave her alone. So bugger off."

Malfoy's wand was hidden in his sleeve, and it was loose enough to use quickly…but he merely took a step forward. Hermione raised her wand, and felt it press into the hard flesh of his abdomen as he bent his head, allowing his lips to graze her ear, making her shiver – not with pleasure, but with disgust.

"Stay out of that which does not concern you, Mudblood. You're already on the menu – don't make yourself the main course." He straightened, smirked at Hermione and the Zabini girl, and strode ahead of them, vanishing into the crowd in his black cloak and hood.

_You're already on the menu_. Malfoy-the-son made empty threats and promises, many of them beginning with the scathing, or petulant, or smug words, "_My father…"_. But Malfoy-the-father was not given to statements uttered without the considerable calculation of his formidable mind. Suddenly, she remembered the _Rite of Spring_, which she had so carefully left at Lily's parents' house, buried within another innocuous pile of music in their sitting room, and her gut iced. Malfoy had been chasing her for a full term. She had assumed the son's love of taunting and cruelty had come from the father, and she simply had to endure his innuendos and intimations of desire because she was a curiosity. But perhaps there was a more sinister reason-

The Zabini girl was still staring at her warily, and she finally asked, "Why did you do that?" Her pointed chin jerked in the direction of the moving students where Malfoy had vanished, all but the last few stragglers having flowed past them and into the carriages. Brought up in a world of constantly shifting alliances, the girl could not imagine what would bring the Gryffindor to her side without some kind of balancing payment to be returned.

Hermione appraised her quietly, but if Professor Snape had taught her anything with his years of spying for the Order, it was that most information should be released strictly on a need-to-know basis. Unless Hermione very much missed her guess, this twin had some investment in Lucius Malfoy, and she had just sent a letter warning Snape about his connection to the instrument trade in Knockturn Alley.

"I don't like Malfoy. And you told him to stop," was all the explanation she tendered before deliberately turning away, ignoring Lily's shocked and admiring green gaze, and hurrying towards the carriages. Magical Law Enforcement wizards glared at them as they fell in at the back of the throng for stopping to do something so trivial as talk in the potentially unsafe, snow-covered ground between the train station and the road to Hogwarts.

888

Severus could not keep his gaze from scraping the Great Hall that night at the return feast. Klytemnestra and Kassandra were keeping their distance from one another – he had gathered that at her sister's insistence, Kassandra had told his uncle about the saxophone in Knockturn Alley, and its deliverer. He was, however, dead certain by the jovial way his aunt and uncle had hugged both twins and set them on the train, that Kassandra had omitted her own relationship with the accused.

Tonight, only Kly sat next to him, while Kassandra sat with their other friends, quiet and pale, ignoring Lucius Malfoy. The blond's storm-grey eyes flickered in her direction as she studiously kept her gaze on her plate and within her immediate circle of conversation. An ugly look brewed under the wealthy boy's eyebrows, accustomed neither to the cold shoulder nor to the abrupt loss of his prizes. As he glanced around, he caught the diamond-hard black eyes of his suddenly-ex-lover's cousin. Severus met his look without fear, and Lucius saw a glimmer of contempt reflected there. He glowered at the third year, but the boy's face merely twisted with an amusement born of disdain, and they remained locked in a staring contest until the seventh year turned his head.

Tapping his lower lip with his fork, Severus considered the all-too-smooth Slytherin seated down the table before moving on with his perusal of the hall, looking for one pair of eyes that he had yet to find-

-his mouth torqued unconsciously in his displeasure as he found the object of his search, seated, as usual, with the four boys who were the bane of his existence. Her copper-and-earth curls tumbled down her back, rippling as she shook her head at something Potter said, five different faces looking at the same spot intently, excitement betrayed by the tense lines of their bodies as they bent inwards to examine something the girl held in her lap.

She had not written to him again, not even to tell him whether she liked the present he had given her. His mouth set into a thin line as he deliberately turned away from where she sat surrounded by the Marauders, black eyes darkening. With two flashy Gryffindors as friends, was it any surprise that she barely gave him a second thought? Between them, Potter and Black largely held the best grades and the most teachers' favor – and if they were outstripped by anyone, it was their new friend.

He was surprised by a stab of jealousy coupled with a renewed sense of loneliness as he savagely speared a limp piece of broccoli and shoved it into his mouth. He had thought that after she received his gift, she would come to him with the invitation that they continue their practice.

But she seemed thoroughly consumed by her housemates, her chocolate eyes never once lifting to meet his, and Severus reflected moodily that she had never chosen to tell him about what had happened the night that they had been caught, and that his older cousin might be right – she might have paid too high a price to have any inclination to continue.

888

Hermione lifted the small, navy blue wrapped package from her trunk, sighing as she sank onto her mattress, stroking the silky texture of the surface as she debated what to do about the tiny book's soon-to-be-owner.

"_The clarinet. Listen for it. When you find that, seek the Echo."_ She had found both, as much as one could discover that which had always existed imbedded in the entirety of all life. But now that she had found it, she was puzzling through the next logical step.

The wheel of war gradually spun faster, gaining momentum with every turn round, both within and without the walls of the school. And what had to be done with or for the Echo was a task that fell to her alone, for she was the only one capable of controlling it, of fixing the delicate balance that it had thrown out of whack by being re-introduced to the world of magic.

But Snape had some part to play. A vital part. And she knew he was waiting, that the harp was no trinket or simple thought, and that, having aligned his pieces, he was practicing the patience that would seem so thin and run so deep in his adult life.

But the so-called inspectors who had tracked them down in the forest were part of, if not the same people as, those who had attacked Diagon Alley that autumn. If she enlarged and played her harp, which the tips of her fingers ached to do, in spite of her rapidly-fading calluses, she was inviting their wrath, at the very least, and possibly courting her own destruction.

And now she had Lily to consider, as the red-head was all eagerness to hear Hermione, and Snape by extension, practice.

Shaking her head to clear it of her muddied thoughts, Hermione shoved the thin book into a robe pocket. She wasn't sure how much of the Echo she should try to explain to Snape, but at least she could give him his gift, and thank him.

888

"Oh, just do it!" Sirius muttered, throwing his book aside and pinning Remus Lupin with an intense stare. "Better than moping around about it. Ask her. What's it going to cost you just to ask? Six words, Remus, and you can stop torturing yourself. Six little words."

Remus squirmed uncomfortably on his bed, trying to focus on his Ancient Runes text and failing miserably. After their meeting in Diagon Alley, he had not met with Hermione again, and he could not forget the care she had taken in selecting the tiny, charm-bound volume that was to be a present for Severus Snape. He could recall in perfect detail the way her slim fingers ran along each spine she considered, caressing the books as she cocked her head and chewed on the inside of her lower lip as she considered each tome prior to finding the one she wanted. Watching her spend so much time carefully selecting the right thing for another boy had wounded the young werewolf deeply, and he had been wrestling with his private green-eyed monster ever since that day in Flourish and Blotts.

"Snape gave her something. For Christmas," he finally blurted to the dormitory. As they were the only four in there, he wasn't worried about private information traveling too fast. But he had not counted on how silent and still the normally noisy room would go, nor for how long it would remain so.

James spoke first, and his voice was deadly quiet. "What did he give her?"

"How should I know?" Remus responded, his voice shrilling as it cracked in response to his distress. "But he did. And I warned her not to open it-"

"Maybe she hasn't," Sirius offered hopefully, even as his black eyes promised some retribution on the Slytherin boy for his presumption.

"I'm sure she has," Remus waved his friend's reassurance aside, his throat filling with nerves and fear.

"Well, she hasn't mentioned it, so it can't have been that spectacular," James attempted. Remus' response was a withering glare.

"She's _really_ going to talk about it in front of us when our first thought every time we see him is to hex him. And he doesn't have to have given her heaven and earth – I didn't get her anything at all."

Peter shrugged. "Neither did I. And neither did they." His pudgy hand indicated their two friends.

"Erm…I sent her some Chocolate Frogs. They arrived a day late, but she said she liked them," Sirius volunteered from his mattress, having the grace to look slightly abashed as Remus rounded on him.

"What I want to know," James had returned to the topic at hand, and his voice had likewise faded from comforting to sinister, "is why he thought to give her a gift in the first place. They're not exactly close."

"As Snivellus doesn't seem the type to be overly demonstrative of anything except his loathing for every Gryffindor that breathes, I think we can probably assume that it was _not _a nice present," Sirius added darkly, and as his eyebrows drew together, he rose, all playfulness vanishing to leave him looking remarkably like the father he disliked so dearly. "That and no Slytherin simply gives someone something with no strings attached." Remus started to roll his eyes, but the hardness in Sirius' voice stopped him. "Remus, you don't know. My parents were both Slytherins, and two of my cousins are in that house. It's always about power. Always. Power, money, influence. That's all that matters to any Slytherin – it's usually what they're born to and certainly all they see in their own common room. If Snivelly gave Hermione so much as a shoelace, there would be some reason for it. We need to find out what."

888

"Snape? Is that an actual package?" Severus found the tiny book that the Gryffindor witch had handed to him in the library plucked deftly from his fingers as he entered his common room, the wrapping tearing as the group of boys surrounding him carelessly examined it, flipping it over.

Michael Avery found a sharp, unpleasant poke in his side when the shiny paper came under his smudged fingers.

"My book, if you please," Severus said coldly, wandpoint digging in between Avery's ribs. "Or I try a new curse I invented over break."

He hadn't actually devoted any time over the holiday to fashioning new spells, but as creating hexes had been a specialty for the past two and a half years there, none of the boys were tempted to challenge him. Avery grudgingly turned the gift back to its rightful owner, and Severus met Lestrange's eyes coldly. The other boy, three months his senior, had the popularity, and his parents had the influence, to make Severus' life difficult at Hogwarts. Nevertheless, Severus smiled a thin smile, his black eyes untouched by the movement of his mouth. He had all the brains. Les wouldn't oppose him, because Snape was necessary.

"Keep your mutts in check, Les," he said casually, flipping his black hair out of his eyes with a careless sweep of his head. "I'm afraid that Wilkes and Avery have just cost you a Potions essay."

He smirked at the boy's suddenly furious face as he swept out of the common room and up the stairs, tucking the book back into his robes. He had long ago grown accustomed to warding his bed, and anyone who so much as brushed the corner of the post found themselves dangling in the air close to the ceiling of the dormitory, often for several hours, until Severus decided to pull them down. Avery and Rosier had attempted assaults on his space once apiece in their first year. Severus had left Avery upside down for nearly eight hours to make his point. Unlike many outcasts from all four houses, Severus Snape did not endure taunts from his housemates because he didn't have to. No one had ever approached his bed again, and most students, both older and younger, hesitated before approaching him for any reason.

As he settled on the thick, black duvet, feeling it sink away under his weight, his fingers were pulling the wrapping from what he had already surmised was a book. A thin book, but a book all the same, and one that she had given to him. He was mildly surprised at his own genuine excitement, untainted by wariness and expectations, and did not examine the cause too closely, knowing that it drifted too close to emotions he had no desire to name or even admit having.

She had sought him out in the library to present him with it, and pressing it into his startled hands, she had thanked him for the harp. With the slim volume, he had felt the rough edges of torn parchment tuck under his palm, and she had smiled and vanished back out the doors. He had looked at the scrap first, only to find her slanted writing. _Greenhouse Three. Eight_.

They had been at school for a scarce twenty-four hours, and his fears at the return feast had been rapidly rejected by the expanding bubble of elation that seemed to balloon within him at the sight of those three words printed out for him to read. For an instant, he wondered if he might leave Klytemnestra out this time, but logic and caution recalled him. His cousin would want to be there if they played, despite her firm words on the subject prior to Christmas, and given the result the only time they had tried so far, she seemed to be an essential asset.

One glance at the ornate, silver-worked clock hanging over the fireplace in his dormitory told him that he had an hour and a half before he had to be in the greenhouse. Eyes flickering up every five minutes or so to check the steady movement of the pointed hands, he set about undoing the charm that locked his present from Hermione Granger.

888

Lily lifted the music gently out of her trunk, smoothing the white sheets as if they were a precious mirror. A twinge of guilt assailed her conscience as she thought of what Hermione was likely to say if she ever discovered that Lily had picked up _The Rite of Spring_ from the stack of loose music and music books that her friend had gone to such lengths to imbed it in.

But Lily felt that she simply couldn't leave it behind, not when she had never played it. Not when it was so easy to pack into her trunk and bring with her.

888

Klytemnestra craned her head about the conservatory cautiously, peering around the greenery that draped from the ceiling, spilling over tables, planters and earth to make standing room nearly impossible to find.

"Zabini." Strolling towards her, dancing out of the reach of the Venomous Tentacula, came the Gryffindor witch, long hair bound in a thick plaint that fell nearly to her waist.

"Granger." Her cousin's deeper voice sounded with hers as they stepped fully inside, the glass door closing behind them.

The three teens stood awkwardly for a moment, each waiting for the others to speak, to break the ice that came of not knowing one another well enough to gauge trust. Hermione spoke first, addressing Klytemnestra.

"I don't think I ever thanked you for attempting to save me from trouble," she told the other girl. "I'm grateful that you tried."

Klytemnestra tilted her head in acknowledgement, lowering her sharp chin. "You're welcome."

"What did they do to you?" Snape asked quietly.

Hermione's mouth twitched. "Nothing," she replied honestly. "We just…talked."

"What about?" the younger Slytherin pressed. Klytemnestra's hand found his arm and squeezed lightly. It was undignified to beg, and his tone was just shy of pleading for an answer.

But the virtuosic witch only shook her head, tendrils of hair escaping to sway in front of her face. "I cannot tell you. I wanted to thank you for the-" her eyes flicked to Snape's cousin, wondering briefly whether or not the girl knew what he had given her, and she quickly modified what she had been about to say, "-gift. And tell you that in spite of it, I must not play again."

Snape's eyes narrowed, gaze sharpening with displeasure as she said the last. "I see," he bit out slowly. "Why?"

Hermione pinned him with an even look. "It is unsafe. The power is too uncontrolled-"

She stopped, and neither of the Slytherins had to ask her why, for they all turned as one to stare out the fogged glass panes of the greenhouse.

From not-so-far away came the swift, piping notes of a flute. Hermione paused for another, awful moment before sprinting for the clear door. Without permission or question, Klytemnestra and Snape followed her whipping braid.

"Damn her!" Hermione growled as she pelted towards the ever-in-bloom rose garden tended by Albus Dumbledore, Professor Sprout and caretaker Apyllon Pringle.

The now-violent shrills coming from the bushes told the story of the flute in _The Rite of Spring_.


	13. Unpleasant Revelations: II

Disclaimer: Alas, tis not mine. Pity, that.

A/N: Thank you all for reading and reviewing, even though I made you go back several chapters to do so. Many thanks go out to my beta for this piece, Trinka!

Unpleasant Revelations: II

Hermione pelted toward the small, chest-high wrought iron gate, and it burst forward at her hastily murmured, "_Alohomora!"_, allowing her to charge through it without slowing or breaking her stride.

Twisting through leaves, feeling her robes snag and rip on the long thorns, she had no time to appreciate the minor miracle of the full roses and their soft petals as the flute continued to weave the magic of a Muggle composer over the cold winter night. She paused, her breath frosting the air in front of her as Klytemnestra and Snape nearly ran into her, skidding to a halt right behind her as she cocked her head, listening for the correct direction. They were quite close now, but it seemed as though the sound floated to them from two different directions, a trick, no doubt, of the maze of greenery surrounding them.

"_Point me,"_ she whispered, hoping that the spell would work for whatever she wanted and not simply spin uselessly. She had never tried to locate a person using it before. But the wood spun on her palm and directed her straight down the path to her right. She started off again, Snape's voice panting in her wake.

"What was that?"

"Shhh," his cousin shushed him quickly.

Another turn, and at a bush full of violet flowers looking healthy in their full bloom even as they were frosted over by the cold, they found Lily, sitting on a bench made of gleaming white marble, her eyes fixed on a series of sheets of paper that she had charmed to levitate in front of her and switch places whenever she was ready.

Hermione opened her mouth, hand stretched forward to snatch the dangerous pipe, when another head full of black hair hurtled into the small niche in the path from the opposite direction, a single word tumbling from her lips.

"Don't!"

Hermione's hand changed trajectory, her wand snapping up as she closed on her friend, recognizing the second Zabini twin.

888

Kassandra sat on a gentle slope next to the lake, watching the dark grey water lap the shore and wishing that her life were as smooth as the surface. After delivering her ultimatum over Christmas, her sister had steadfastly avoided her, and Kassandra could not meet her younger cousin's eyes. Her heart pinched painfully as she realized that between her OWL preparation in classes, his insistence on playing music and her new relationship with the Crown Prince of Slytherin, she had allowed herself to drift away from the cousin that she had protected equally with Klytemnestra for the past two years. To see the revulsion in his eyes when he had understood the nature of her association with Lucius Malfoy had hurt her deeply. Caustic as he was, Severus was matured well beyond his thirteen years, and Kassandra had genuinely enjoyed his company until this fall.

And her sister…Klytemnestra was not quick to forgive, like most of the family, and there was no denying that Kassandra had to apologize for not displaying even an ounce of cunning in giving her silver-tongued suitor exactly what he wanted. But Klytemnestra seemed determined to continue not speaking to her, spending more and more of her time with Severus. But there had to be a way. They were twins, inseparable until they had arrived at Hogwarts, and close until now…

She skipped a rock over the lake, watching it sink into the cold depths before rising. She would just have to make an effective argument-

She froze halfway to standing, knees still bent in a half-crouch as she heard the sound. A flute. Remembering Lucius' intense interest in the musician, she straightened and dashed for the sound at a sprint. The American witch was a friend of the Evans girl, and Granger had saved her from Lucius when coming back to school. She owed the young Gryffindor. And her cousin seemed to have some kind of friendship with the girl as well. This was as good a way as any to convince them of her intentions.

888

One of the objects of Kassandra Zabini's brooding sat in the library, grey eyes the same color as the stone behind him as he attempted to read, studying for his NEWT in Potions. He gritted his teeth as his eyes unfocused once more and he instead concentrated on an internal dilemma.

Kassandra's total rejection at the train platform had been unexpected and baffling. What had happened over break to turn her against him? He knew her sister, Klytemnestra, had never cared for him, but Kassandra hadn't seemed to mind that her twin's opinion of him differed from her own.

But strangest of all, that impossible transfer-in Gryffindor had challenged him, forcing him to back away from his carefully cultivated prize. He had never seen them together, and knew that Kassandra was jealous of the other witch because of his persistent interest in her. But Hermione Granger had charged to Kassandra's defense as certainly as she would defend her own housemates and the posse that seemed at her permanent disposal. And he had bowed out, unwilling to fight a witch who generated so much magic that it poured from her in tangible, physical form.

As to the youngest cousin…his master had idly enquired into the Snape family after Lucius had remarked on the young wizard's adept handling of himself and the curses he cast. But in spite of his influence, wealth and popularity, Lucius had never been able to get the boy to take advantage of his repeated offers of companionship, and instead, Snape had spurned all affiliation with Malfoy and any who regularly associated with him. In the shifting politics of Slytherin house, the boy had rejected those who might help him, sown the seeds of many enmities, and yet had stilled carved himself an undeniably unique role in the games of his housemates. The Dark Lord had discovered that Snape was a half-blood, and that had cooled his desire to see the then-twelve-year-old boy take his Mark immediately, but Lucius had given his lord regular updates on the boy until this new girl had arrived in England and the power-hungry wizard had become obsessed with her.

But there had been a knowing look melded with the contempt in the black eyes at the return feast the night before, and Lucius had the nasty feeling that Snape had somehow discovered what he was after, and that he had warned Kassandra against Lucius. He had, after all, summarily turned aside all members of Slytherin only to entangle himself with a Gryffindor, a snip of a girl who was far too perceptive for his tastes.

The Gryffindor his lord wanted. And without Kassandra, Lucius still did not know how he would subdue a musician who was growing into her power. The Dark Lord was unlikely to accept another flurry of excuses about his consistent failure.

His vicious imagination detailed what he would like to do to the snide, insufferable thirteen-year-old who gave the appearance of knowing so much and the Gryffindor witch that he clearly had some strange affection for. Increasingly dark ponderings were interrupted by a sound he had not hope to hear again, and his platinum head rose sharply.

Even though the closed window, he could hear the flute.

888

"Don't!"

"Stay away from her!"

"_Accio!" _A Summoning charm snagged the instrument, which flew neatly into Kassandra's outstretched hand.

"_Expelliarmus!"_ Both Kassandra's wand and the flute flashed in the starlight as the soared towards Hermione. She caught the straight length of silver, but a black-robed arm flickered upward, and Klytemnestra grabbed her sister's wand.

A tense moment followed, where wide green eyes stared back and forth between three pairs of black and one brown.

"What are you doing here?" the twins asked one another at the same time. Hermione was relieved that Klytemnestra was keeping a tight hold on her twin's wand and showed little inclination to hand it back.

"There are more of us than there are of you," Hermione said coldly, wand still pointed at the now-defenseless girl. "You first."

Kassandra shot her a malevolent glare, all thoughts of gratitude forgone in the face of the Gryffindor's command. But the look didn't seem to faze the other young woman at all, and Hermione lifted one eyebrow as the silence stretched, the expression absurdly reminding Kassandra of Severus.

"Kly-" she turned to address her family, "Kly, I'm not here to – I came to warn her."

"Warn me of what?" Lily's eyes had narrowed as the seconds ticked past. There was much more going on here than would initially meet the eye, but Snape and one Zabini had pounded into her space on Hermione's heels, and both seemed willing to allow her to set the tone. When had Hermione had time to develop a friendship with two Slytherins? Especially one that the Marauders hated?

"You mustn't play that. Lucius Malfoy gave it to you," Kassandra told her, facing her.

Lily's eyes widened again as they flew to Hermione, and the two girls shared an even look.

"What?" Snape asked.

"Malfoy didn't give it to her. He gave it to me," Hermione replied slowly. Her gaze was back Kassandra. "How do you know it was him?"

"He gave me a gift of a similar nature," she answered evenly.

"He _what_?" Klytemnestra snapped, fingers tightening around Kassandra's wand, knuckles going white in her furious grip.

Kassandra's black eyes studied the ground. "He gave me sheet music too." Her voice was less distinct, muffled with shame.

"So he must have been part of the theft of the musical instruments," Snape said slowly.

"More likely he knew someone who was or who could get him some of the merchandise," Klytemnestra replied. Her eyes turned, diamond hard, to her sister. "Has he gone on any extended absences? Could he have been directly involved in the missing shipment?"

Kassandra shook her head, glad that her now-much-regretted afternoons spent with Malfoy could yield something useful. "No. I would say not. But given what they saw in Knockturn Alley, I would say it's undeniable that he knows someone."

"Did you show them that letter?" Hermione had rounded on Snape at Kassandra's last words. He looked at her unperturbed.

"They were at the table when I opened it. I showed it to them."

"That was supposed to be private information," Hermione hissed. Snape glanced around, unconcerned.

"It is. The five people who know it are standing right here."

"And Remus Lupin," Lily volunteered from the bench.

"What?" Snape snapped, black eyes locked on Hermione's face. "Did you tell him too?"

"No. He was with us in the Alley," Lily defended. At this, Snape's face darkened inexplicably and he turned away, twisting his body with some violence to indicate his displeasure.

Ignoring him, Hermione sat down next to her friend, and Snape started pacing, robes flickering as they caught up to his body at each turn. Klytemnestra and Kassandra remained still, as if a little uncertain of each other. Klytemnestra still had her sister's wand as they weighed one another.

"D'you think he's connected to the men who wear red?" Snape finally asked after stillness settled over them again. Hermione's back straightened. She had almost forgotten that she included them in the note, she had been so surprised about Malfoy – Malfoy and the music, and his connection to Kassandra-

"You know them," she said suddenly, her voice a half-whisper as she looked to Klytemnestra. "The men in red. You got off. You know them." The wand, which had been lying cock-eyed in her lap, was now up and pointing firmly at the Slytherin girl.

"What?" Klytemnestra started, then her eyes narrowed. "No. You've got the wrong set. Many wizards wear red robes. Just because they wear the same color, it doesn't mean that they're the same-"

"They used music," Hermione interrupted inexorably. "The owner of Flourish and Blotts heard it. If they were not members of the Keeper Concilium, who were, after all, hunting music here at Hogwarts, then who were they?"

Kassandra gasped, and Klytemnestra leveled both wands at Hermione, the dynamic shifting fluidly in seconds. Snape froze, apart from the rest, dark eyes resting on each face in turn, baffled, but understanding that whatever Hermione had said, it hardly met with his cousins' approval. Kassandra stepped next to her twin, who allowed her to take her wand, keeping it pointed directly at the Gryffindor. Hermione and Lily had both of their wands extended as well, one focused on each Slytherin girl.

"How do you know their name?" Klytemnestra whispered. "No one knows that. They're one of Britain's best-guarded secrets."

"The consular who found us – Mrozcek – wanted to…he told me who he was, and where he was from," Hermione changed tacks mid-sentence. It was too much to hope that the three Slytherins wouldn't notice, and wouldn't press.

"Told you?" Klytemnestra repeated coldly, while Kassandra snorted. "The only reason he would have told you the truth about the Concilium is that you are someone of importance to them." She took a step closer, and Hermione watched her draw on the lessons ingrained since birth, an air of nobility wrapping her like a skin-tight gown as her wand point drew closer to Hermione's heart. The aristocratic arrogance of the next question reminded the Gryffindor witch strongly of the only time she had ever met Narcissa Malfoy as an adult, and made her skin crawl. "Are _you_ someone they deem to be of importance, Hermione Granger of America?"

Lily had surged to her feet, and her wand was now mere inches from Kassandra's nose. "Leave off," she hissed. "Or no one will have difficulty telling the two of you apart ever again."

Hermione and Klytemnestra didn't move, eyes locked on one another, tamed hostility released once more, the image of the immaculate, blonde mother of spoiled Draco superimposed on the night-black tresses and darker, but no less fair, features of Klytemnestra Zabini. Hermione blinked to clear her vision. The strength and frequency of these attacks, where the two timelines would merge in her memory, were growing ever weaker and farther apart, but sometimes still had the clarity to take her breath away.

"Maybe he didn't tell me the truth," Hermione whispered quietly into the taut silence. "Maybe they _did_ attack Diagon Alley, and he came here to ensure that no students with a talent for music learned the arts that could stop him. Maybe someone other than Voldemort had an interest in Grindelwald's research regarding music."

"The Concilium has existed for centuries! Grindelwald has nothing to do with it!" snarled Kassandra, eyes still fixed on Lily's wand, which was hovering closer. She had none of her sister's poise, possibly because Lily looked a breath away from hexing her into oblivion.

"If he told you the nature of what they do, then you know that they do not use their mastery for attack," Klytemnestra said, as if her twin had not spoken.

Hermione arched an eyebrow. "No," she said slowly. She had assumed that the consular meant her well. He had seemed an essentially decent man – not a fan of Dumbledore, but then, everyone that didn't necessarily agree with the headmaster was hardly a Death Eater or Dark Wizard – if a little hidebound. His offer to train her, while unwelcome, had felt sincere when she had been standing in the Headmaster's office almost two months ago…

But that was the problem. There was no way to know, and all the evidence now pointed to the contrary, that if she had agreed to go with them, she would have been incarcerated, or worse…

"I have no guarantees of what they actually do or accomplish with their vast knowledge of music," Hermione continued softly. "Only that they are all proficient and have an enormous amount of knowledge. But I am curious," the imperious look on Klytemnestra's face likely worked on most Slytherins. But Hermione had looked into the face of half a dozen Death Eaters, and the prospect of asking the Zabini girl questions was only tiring, not intimidating. "I would love to know – if they are one of Britain's best-kept secret societies, how do _you_ know about them?"

The girls stiffened, and exchanged a glance. Snape spoke from where he had almost blended with the leaves of the rose bushes, the night making the green nearly as black as his robes.

"I didn't know any of that," his voice murmured. "But I am also most interested to know, _cousin_," the emphasis on the family connection was not a kind one, and sounded faintly of betrayal, "how you come by this information."

"We have the right connections," Klytemnestra finally answered.

Hermione snorted, long since used to oblique and sneering answers, but Lily exploded. The subject was one of her weak points. "The _right _connections? You Slytherins make me sick! Your pureblood mania, your holier-than-thou attitude, your swaggering arrogance! No wonder the rising Dark Lord is reputed to harvest most of his recruits from your house – you're ready-made and rubber-stamped for him to take you off the assembly line. Muggle-hating, power-grubbing, wealthy sycophants just his for the taking!" Her chest heaving, Lily yanked her wand from Kassandra's face as if it took considerable effort to deny herself the satisfaction of hexing her. Hermione stared. Lily was always so even-tempered, so sweet, so understanding…now she looked positively dangerous, and Harry flashed in her green eyes in front of Hermione's face. She smiled without joy. Lily's outburst was worthy of her son in his worst moments.

"These red-robed men _wrecked_ Diagon Alley. Destroyed homes and shops, and they killed people. This isn't some stupid game to hold information over children and lord over others like whose parents sat closest to the Minster's family at the last gala. If you know them, or know about them, and you're not telling, that makes you as guilty as they are if they decide to rampage again."

Her green eyes glittered as she surveyed the two sisters, both frozen in shock, the mantle of her high birth completely vanished as Klytemnestra simply stared at the young witch. When no response was forthcoming, she turned away from them. "C'mon, Hermione," she whispered hoarsely, and Hermione wasn't quite surprised to see Lily's eyes a brilliant jade with unshed tears.

"Let's go," Hermione agreed. Her wand remained on the two as she backed away, running into several thorns. She didn't complain, it was clear that she would rather run into the spines than turn her back on the sister's, knowing what they knew.

She need not have bothered. Neither twin moved until they were well out of sight, hidden by the roses, and then one arm snaked out to check Snape as he strode past, intent on going after the two girls.

"Are they right?" Snape rounded on his cousins. Though two years younger, he was already some inches taller, and was not above using his height to intimidate. "She said in the note that they had – did they attack the alley?"

"No, of course not," Klytemnestra replied harshly. "I don't know what she's playing at. Come on."

Snape hesitated, undecided. Kassandra pinned him with a glare, but it was her sister who spoke again, her hand tight on his forearm. "Family, Severus."

He glowered, but nodded stiffly in assent, and without speaking, they turned, their robes swirling around their ankles as they strode back to their common room, each with a package of their own thoughts.

888

Lucius cocked his head sharply to listen, and smiled. The music had ceased some moments before, but it was replaced by a furious, half-whispered argument. Treading lightly, he murmured a spell to part the branches with their treacherous thorns in front of him, leaving just enough space for his eyes to take in the scene.

The silver flute flashed in the dim light, drawing his eye to its holder. The American! He had been correct! Kassandra had lied to him. He ignored the surge of anger that accompanied this thought as he strained to identify the rest of the small group, their black robes on the dark green bushes making it difficult to distinguish where one ended and the other began. He could see that the Granger girl was holding her wand on one figure, and another form also had their wand-arm extended towards that same person.

Seated on a marble bench and looking slightly confused was another Gryffindor – Lily Evans – another recent addition to the Slug Club. Fascinating. Perhaps this was why she and Granger were such good friends. There had been more than one instrument being played in the forest that night nearly two months ago, it would make sense if she were one of them…

Although he hadn't heard the distinct tones of a flute that evening…he pushed that puzzle aside, needing to hear. Later, he could weed through the pieces and put them together.

Granger said something in their heated voices that brought identical gasps, and Lucius recognized his ex-lover and her twin. He frowned. This _was_ unexpected, but it went a long way to explaining Kassandra's sudden coldness…but the other twin was holding two wands, and now both were pointed at Granger, whereas previously they had been directed towards Kassandra. Clearly she had said something to displease them. He grinned with delight at the abrupt turning of the tables.

"How do you know their name?" Klytemnestra was whispering, and he strained to hear. "No one knows that. They're one of Britain's best-guarded secrets."

"The consular who found us – Mrozcek – wanted to…he told me who he was, and where he was from."

"Told you?" Klytemnestra repeated, and Lucius' smile grew wider at the ice in her voice. "The only reason he would have told you the truth about the Concilium is that you are someone of importance to them. Are _you_ someone they deem to be of importance, Hermione Granger of America?"

The Concilium? Lucius racked his brain, desperately reaching for a reference point, a memory that would allow him to decipher what they were talking about, but his mind only drew a blank, and he twisted his head, trying to hear as their voices dropped in fierce discussion. He gathered a few phrases as tones rose and fell in pitch. "Maybe they did attack Diagon Alley," Granger said, and Kassandra responded some moments later, "The Concilium has existed for centuries! Grindelwald-" Cursing his ears and the thickness of the screen that separated them, Lucius leaned so far he felt thorns prick, and knew they would draw blood.

"-if they are one of Britain's best-kept secret societies, how do _you_ know about them?" Granger was asking. Silence greeted this question, and a figure melted forward from the brush that Lucius had not seen previously. However, he was completely unsurprised when the lanky form spoke with Severus Snape's voice.

"I didn't know any of that. But I am also most interested to know, _cousin_, how you come by this information."

A secret society? And Kassandra knew about it? He started earnestly thinking of ways to get back in her good books, for her to trust him again. Whole societies of wizards only existed in secret if they protected something powerful. _"The consular who found us – Mrozcek_…" His grey eyes widened. Mrozcek had been one of the inspectors at the school first term. All of Lucius' contacts and numerous called-in favors from both students and alumni had availed him nothing when they had been there, no one could tell him a single thing about the strange visitors. But it seemed that at least three of the girls standing in front of him had a good idea…

"These red-robed men _wrecked_ Diagon Alley. Destroyed homes and shops, and they killed people." Lily Evans was storming in front of him, and had been for several minutes. But this statement sent his mind on another jog, a memory of Rookwood's pained face and whispers through the Death Eaters that someone had found a way to use music before their lord had, and that he was not happy…

Red robes. Mrozcek. The Concilium. An "inspection" at Hogwarts. As the two Gryffindor witches walked away, he saw Granger hand the flute to Evans. A flurry of action as Snape started after the younger girls, only to have his cousins stop him. And then they, too, turned and went in the opposite direction, silence falling over the place where they had been standing.

Lucius sighed, a smirk quirking the corner of one mouth. He might not deliver the girl next time he reported to his lord, but there was certainly plenty to say.

888

As Hermione clambered back into the common room at fifteen minutes past nine o'clock and curfew, grateful that she and Lily had not encountered any teachers, a group of four boys rose from their places by the fire, arms crossed and eyebrows raised. Absurdly, they reminded her of four stern parents about to launch into a diatribe.

"Evans?" James had caught sight of Hermione's companion, and his face brightened, losing its father-like cast in favor of delight. Sirius rolled his eyes and aimed a kick at James' shin.

"Have fun," Lily muttered, passing quickly through the room and darting up the girl's staircase where the boys could not follow, calling her "Good night!" over her shoulder. The flute would be placed back in the case and Disillusioned to live under Lily's bed. Hermione felt vaguely abandoned, but she knew that after her furious tirade at the Zabini twins, Lily had no interest in dealing with the Marauders.

"Second night back and you go disappearing?" Sirius started. "I thought we had a project to work on."

"I was in the-"

"Library?" To her surprise, it was not James who picked up her partial lie, but Remus, and she was dismayed to see the pronounced disappointment there. "We looked. You weren't there."

"I was. Until about 8:30," she replied, feeling her face heat uncomfortably. She didn't want to have to start lying to them now…especially since her friendship with Snape would be both unexplainable to them and impossible to maintain with their constant interference.

Then again, perhaps it wouldn't matter. As long as his snake-like cousins had their claws sunk into him, any sort of positive connection seemed unlikely. The girls had said nothing except to deny Hermione's claims and questions, and they had offered not a single shred of proof to disabuse her of her notions. Consequently, they had simply deepened them, and Hermione would not associate with those who kept secrets for murderers. Until a couple of years ago, the Death Eaters had been largely a closed society, until Voldemort had begun his open ascent to power, and Hermione wondered who these men were that she had never heard of them, especially with the attack on Diagon Alley.e

"Which leaves a grand total of," Sirius checked his watch, "forty-five minutes for you to get yourself into all kinds of trouble."

"She was with _Lily_, Sirius," James had re-joined the conversation now that the object of his thirteen-year-old desires had vanished out of sight up the spiral staircase. "They can't have gotten into that much trouble."

This appeared to take some of the wind out of Sirius' sails of righteous indignation, and Peter, who always followed suit, was looking slightly more apologetic than stern now. But Remus' gentle eyes had flared with something like happiness at this composition of two and two.

"What did Snape give you for Christmas?" Sirius switched subjects so quickly that Hermione stared at him for a moment, her mind still on puzzling out why this group of troublemakers and rule breakers cared that she was out past curfew.

"I don't see that's any business of yours, Black." She deliberately frosted her voice with the same disdain of the girls of her dormitory, severely displeased with their version of interrogation. "If Snape wants to give me a present, that's his prerogative."

"It wasn't dangerous?" Remus and James asked together, looking both hopeful and relieved. Hermione knew they would gladly take any excuse to hex the unpopular Slytherin into next week.

"No. It was a bauble, all right? An ornament that had the village of Hogsmeade in miniature inside it," she lied quickly, knowing where she could get such an item by owl order.

"Why?" Sirius asked.

"You'd have to ask him," she responded tartly, and then realized what she had just said. "Don't you _dare_ ask," she snapped in a low voice. "I don't understand why you guys can't leave him alone. And if we continue to talk about Snape, I'm not going to help determine anything further about our project."

This silenced them completely. Much as they hated Snape and wanted answers, the ability to become Animagi was far more important to them. And it was already clear that without Hermione, their chances of success collapsed from slim to none.

"All right," Sirius muttered sulkily. But James was already reaching for his bag, where dwelled all the books that Hermione had brought back with her.

Remus was frowning as he watched the other four flip open the three books she had purchased for this purpose. He was genuinely relieved to know that Snape had not given her a dangerous item, but what continued to puzzle him was why he had thought to give her anything at all. They were hardly close – they never even sat together in class…perhaps the Slytherin boy bore some watching.

"There are three more that we'll need – I've owled for them – but since our trunks were looked through coming back to school, I thought it was best not to have six books that essentially comprise the do-it-yourself handbook to becoming Animagi," she was explaining. "These books will help us through the first phases. The problem is I think we'll eventually need a special receptacle that's housed in the Ministry, something tied to animal magic-"

"Animals have magic?" Remus asked.

"Just a little, less even than Muggles, but we still need to connect to it to complete the process."

"My dad works at the Ministry," James volunteered.

"And mine!" Peter added hastily.

"We could ask them if they would allow us to go in with them, then sneak off and find whatever this thing is over the summer."

"Maybe," Hermione said absently. "But it's more important now to figure out what we're going to be." She had opened the Transfiguration book to an early chapter, and four heads bent in to scan the opening paragraph.

"_Every witch or wizard has one or more animal representations. Most often, the strongest connection between a wizard and a particular type of animal manifests in an individual's Patronus charm, their protector and message sender. When seeking to become an Animagus, however, a witch or a wizard is often given a choice between two or three forms that they can focus on becoming. Once they choose one, that form is forever theirs, and the other forms become an impossibility. The first step in transformation is understanding what you, as an individual, have the ability to become._"

Underneath the paragraph, there was an ingredients list, followed by complicated looking instructions.

"A potion?" James yelped in dismay. "We have to brew a potion to get to know our forms?"

"The first of many, James," Hermione sighed. "Potions, Transfiguration and Arithmancy all figure heavily into becoming Animagi, as do Herbology and Charms. This is going to take time. Possibly years." When Hermione had learned in her third year how long it had taken two of the best students of Transfiguration at Hogwarts the better part of three years to become Animagi, she had wondered why. But extensive reading had given her the answer. Becoming an Animagus was not at all the same as turning inanimate objects into animals, or even turning a person into an animal, though to the outward eye, it was identical. To change at will, always to the same form, and retain both a human mind and have all the instincts of the animal, required a solid understanding of the animal one became, and a respect for the creature and the world that it came from. It also required permanent physiological changes. Hermione was convinced that there were so few Animagi in the wizarding population due to the complexity of the process to become one – and the side effects. She had found to her dismay that witches became sterile in the process of becoming Animagi, probably a leading reason why there was only one registered female Animagus in the entire twentieth century, and she had only met one other illegal one.

She marked the place for the potion and shut the book with a sigh. Once an Animagus, the alteration from human to animal form was painless and immediate, but the many steps to get there were not. And given some of the consequences, she was starting to wonder if she would complete the journey.

888

Waiting at the back of the room, the least important of his lord's informants and followers, Lucius did not dare to sit, even as the hour he had been there stretched to two, then to three, and midnight arrived and passed as others moved forward and back, power flowing and eddying in the room as the self-styled lord bestowed favors and the Cruciatus with equal dispassion. The clock in the hall chimed one, and Lucius felt a stirring of apprehension. He could not be missed, which meant that he should return to Hogwarts by five in the morning, so that his dormitory mates would not notice his absence.

"What information do you bring me from the Ministry, Calitus?" came the soft question from the throne-like upholstered chair near the hearth.

"My lord, the Minister is ripe to fall…" Lucius studied the planks of wood under his feet, the dark green color of the paper on the wall, the silver trim lining floor and ceiling. The Dark Lord's obsession with things that represented Hogwarts in any way, especially Slytherin, was a much-discussed subject between the Death Eaters. Apparently, anyone who could bring the lord an object belonging to one of the founders was richly rewarded…

"...excellent. You have done well." The lord bestowed a smile that was more like a grimace on his bowed-over servant, and finally his eyes came to rest on Lucius, standing stiffly near the back as the room grew emptier and emptier, the Ministry contingent filing out, Calitus looking quite smug, until there were only three people left.

"I believe you have been quite patient, Lucius," the lord almost purred from his seat. "Come." A skeletal finger beckoned, and Lucius hastened forward, blond hair swinging into his face. "You arrive voluntarily. Perhaps you bring me something I seek?"

Lucius swallowed. He had not brought his lord the girl, and he was wondering now whether his rush to gain the Dark Lord's approval with what suddenly seemed irrelevant musings had been folly. But it was too late now, the Mark on his wrist was heating as he failed to answer Voldemort's question.

"Not a girl, master," he replied, mouth dry with dread. "I bring information." The words tumbled from his lips as fast as he could shove them off. He relayed everything he had heard the girls say, placing careful emphasis on the red-robed men, their attack on Diagon Alley, their connection with music and the Zabini twins apparent knowledge of their activities. Voldemort's expression moved from thunderous to curious to cunning, the almost non-existent eyebrows smoothing as his eyes turned to some internal object, all redness vanished in his absorption with his thoughts.

"Well done, Lucius. Well done," he said at last. He tapped his thin lips with a slender finger. "You have discovered what even Rookwood failed to uncover." Silence, and then, "If you cannot bring me the – you said she is an American? – girl, then bring me one of the daughters of Zabini." Redness lanced through his gaze as he turned it back on the young blond in front of him. "Do not return here until you have her."

Lucius bowed, grateful that his spying had reaped at least a partial pardon from his master. "Yes, my lord."


	14. Kassandra's Bargain

Disclaimer: Standard applies, no money, respects to those to whom respect is due.

A/N: I apologize for how long this has taken me to put out – thank you all for reviewing and sticking with it, though, it means a great deal to me! A huge thanks to my beta, Trinka, for all of her work on this, and my promise that chapter fifteen is actually with her now, so hopefully there will be more updating soon! Read and enjoy!

Kassandra's Bargain

  
  
As Hermione carefully marked the page of an old tome in the library, two spots on either side of her spine began to itch, her body's sixth sense and warning that she was being watched. Years of study in the art of subtlety learned the hard way - an unfortunate side effect of being a best friend of Harry Potter - kept her from sitting up straight in her chair and turning to find the source of her vague discomfort. Her stalker's gaze felt uncertain, not malevolent, and so was instantly categorized as a curiosity instead of a threat to be dealt with immediately. Either they would walk into her line of vision as they left the room, or she would see them when she stood and collected her own books.

She tapped her parchment with the end of her quill, frustration settling in once again. Since the encounter in the ever-in-bloom rose garden, she had been in the library for almost all of her spare time, seeking any information on the Keeper Concilium. After the meeting with Mroczek several months ago, she had not consulted the shelves that had always stood her in good stead, but had put the information in the back of her mind to be oft retrieved and mulled over, the matter of whom they were a secondary interest to understanding the enigma she was proving to be. She was uncertain, now, what she was intended to do. She had discovered both what the Echo was and who the clarinetist was, fulfilling the orders Professor Snape had given her months ago, and now was at a loss as to how to proceed.

In the absence of instruction, she had turned back to the mystery of the Concilium, her curiosity renewed with the news of the attack from Diagon Alley, and the strange connection the Zabini family had to them. In a recent review of the night Mroczek had caught them in the forest, she recalled vividly the way that Klytemnestra had ordered him not to report them:

_"If the Headmaster can forgive our presence in this forest, my father can forgive yours."_

But information on the Concilium did not exist on printed pages, and Hermione could not confess herself surprised that the library was once again refusing to yield her desired goal. A society shrouded in mystery could hardly remain so if information on it was available on school bookcases. She reflected ruefully that as she got older, and the fight against Voldemort took on different, strange magic not taught at Hogwarts, the trusted volumes gathering dust on the shelves contained less and less of what she needed.

_"If the Headmaster can forgive our presence in this forest, my father can forgive yours."_

Perhaps it was time to put aside the secret organization and focus on Mr. Zabini, a wizard who wielded such political and social power that his sixteen-year-old daughter was at ease commanding a man of Mr. Mrozcek's supposed standing. She rose, stretched, caught sight of the eyes watching her - Snape, his hair slung over his face in the curtain that would become his customary hiding place as an adult - and walked out of the bookshelves and towards the limited selection of periodicals, pointedly ignoring the boy who had been shadowing her for four weeks. She had read almost all of the books about great wizards and achievements of the twentieth century, and she did not recall Zabini's name being amongst them. So it was likely that his work was extremely modern, and would be recorded in the glossy pages of _Witch Weekly_ or, probably, _Galleons and Knuts: Britain's Greatest Working Wizards_ or _Thyme_.

Snape hesitated some rows away, unaware that the object of his observation knew he was watching her, debating, as he had been for weeks, how to approach her. His cousins had been as closed-lipped with him about the mysterious Concilium as they had been with the Gryffindor girls, and his frustration with their evasive answers was growing.

Added to this was the gnawing sense that Lucius Malfoy was planning something that would affect Snape's family. Snape had lifted his head from his toast and coffee this morning to see the platinum-crowned Prince of Slytherin eyeing Kassandra with a speculative smirk, and the younger wizard's spine had chilled. There had been something predatory in Malfoy's eyes, not in the way that a boy seeks a girl he likes, but the way a hunter stalks when intending to kill. Having no true friends to speak of, the young Slytherin's connection to his family was thusly strengthened, and in spite of his disgust at Kassandra's obvious lack of taste in men and his irritation at his cousins' obsessive secrecy, a threat to her heightened Snape's sense of alarm.

Through it all, the Gryffindor witches sat, whatever information they possessed sealed away, the American transfer student squashed between despised Potter and loathed Black in every class they shared, just a few meters from him and seeming as inaccessible as the bottom of the ocean. He could remember quite clearly the morning after the fight on the grounds. Their gazes had collided in the middle of their Transfiguration classroom as they pulled chairs away from desks and dropped bags to prepare for class, and after a moment she had arched her eyebrow in a gesture of courteous invitation, and turned her back. Her meaning had been perfectly clear. She would not come to him.

He had struggled for a month with whether he would go to her. Part of him, a part that was desperate for answers to his many questions, prodded him to move forward, to seek the information he was oddly certain she could provide. The part that understood the full weight and meaning of angering the only two people in his House that truly cared for him, the family he valued so highly, urged him to forget her. And a third part, a part that he had been squirming away from acknowledging for months, quietly egged him onwards, caring little for answers and for family, only for the physical nearness of the wild tresses that seemed untamable by magic or brush or plait, and the slender limbs that were deceptively small for the power they housed.

As always, House allegiances and family security stayed his footsteps and his tongue, and he merely stood, gaze fastened on her from his place behind the volumes, unwilling to move as long as he could see her without being seen, watch her without fearing the scrutiny of his housemates and her friends.

He had not counted on the ever-present glance of his cousins, who were seated not far from Hermione, studying for their OWLs. Kassandra was making a list of the twelve uses of dragon's blood as Klytemnestra screwed up her face in concentration, memorizing the steps to a basic, catch-all antidote. There was always a risk that a mild poison would be in the practical part of the exam, and rumor was that lethal toxins had been used until too many students had died at the end of their fifth year by failing their Potions exams. Snape had heard this story, and while he privately thought that it sounded like something invented by the staff to scare students into studying, he would simply carry a bezoar with him for the exam when his turn came in two years.

All attempts to remember schoolwork ceased as Kassandra elbowed her sister in the ribs and pointed silently to where Severus stood, as unmoving as the shelf he was partially tucked behind, his eyes trained intently on a third point of focus. Craning their necks revealed the recipient of his attention, and the sisters locked eyes, in complete accord once more. Suspicion and family in-fighting had been instantly suspended in the face of opposition from an outside source, and the twins were enjoying their renewed closeness, even when it was expressed in mutual exasperation over their cousin's peculiar attachment to a witch who asked too many uncomfortable questions and knew entirely too much.

Kassandra bent her head inwards to breathe in a whisper, "He's completely infatuated with her."

Klytemnestra made a low noise of agreement. "I would be pleased - she's the first person he's ever indicated an interest in outside of a purely intellectual plane - except that she's the worst possible choice he could make in the entirety of Hogwarts."

"Or all England for that matter," her sister muttered. "She's too..."

"Powerful," Klytemnestra said bleakly. She wondered if the Gryffindor girl's raw power were the attraction for her cousin, but she doubted it. It had to be the girl's voice, in part, and her brains...

"It'll run its course, I think," Kassandra said diffidently, sitting back to return to her OWLs. Klytemnestra watched Severus a little longer, her thin, dark brows drawn together to crease in the middle, creating worry-lines.

From the steady, unwavering quality to Severus' countenance, Klytemnestra doubted that whatever he felt for the strangely talented witch would run its course in so short a period of time.

888

A thick, heavy parcel landed in front of Hermione, the tawny owl depositing it carefully between pumpkin juice and eggs at breakfast, flaring its large wings as it landed and leaving the table untouched by its arrival. It received an extra piece of bacon for its trouble and scooted off to the Owlery hastily, clearly afraid that it was about to be laden with an equally weighty burden. The young witch sighed in relief, grateful that something in her life seemed to be working smoothly. The periodicals last night had born essentially no fruit - Anthony Zabini's name had appeared in the covering of several charity and Ministry events, one of which had been thrown at his manor on the island of Sicily. But as to his professional work, or where his great quantities of money came from, the magazines either didn't know or weren't telling – and knowing publishers, it certainly wasn't the latter.

"Are those the other books we need?" Remus asked, leaning in eagerly and deliberately allowing his shoulder to nestle firmly against hers from the left side and remain. He slanted a glance at her face, trying to guess at her reaction to his touch, but Hermione's dark eyes belonged solely to the package that James and Sirius were already reaching for. She swiftly placed the bulky delivery in her bag, dislodging Remus and setting it out of reach of the other boys at the same time.

"We want to see - are they the ones?" Sirius was halfway out of his seat and leaning across the table, hand outstretched like a demanding toddler reaching for his favorite toy.

"It's two of them, the last one I ordered into Folio's - we can pick it up there. But as Professor McGonagall is approximately fifteen feet away, I somehow think it's an unwise idea to simply open them where she could easily see what we're looking at," Hermione said neatly, zipping her bag again. "We can look at them after class today."

The two black-haired boys across from her exchanged pained looks that bespoke pure impatience as Sirius slumped back into his place, and Hermione laughed, genuine delight ringing in her voice. If only she had ever seen Ron and Harry look so excited about a set of textbooks-

"And...uh...the other part, are we going to get started on that soon?" James asked hopefully.

"We still need ingredients, James, and Hogsmeade isn't for another two weekends." A flurry of looks passed between the boys at the mention of the trip – James and Sirius giving Remus an intent stare, and Remus returning the look with equal heat, his cheeks coloring red. Hermione's head swung between them, nonplussed by the peculiar, nonverbal exchange.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing." James rose pointedly from the table, making an exaggerated show of checking his watch. "Oh - look at that, five minutes to class. Siri, I think I left my Potions essay in our room."

"You know, I'm pretty sure I did too. Peter can help us retrieve them." Sirius all but yanked Peter away from his breakfast, sending marmalade on a spoon skittering down the table as the three friends marched out, evidently leaving Remus some task, for James and Sirius both turned at the great doors and grinned at him saucily before disappearing in the direction of the staircase.

"What's going on?" Hermione asked, looking at him.

To her surprise, he was watching his plate as if it were quite the most fascinating thing he'd seen in a long time. "Remus?" she prompted worriedly. In the future, there were only the three of them comprising the center of her world, and the workings of a five-person group sometimes baffled her, although none of the personalities were as volatile as Ron and Harry when they were angry with one another. Were James and Sirius planning some prank?

"Erm...well...it's nothing," he mumbled, shoving a bit of partially melted butter across his plate to leave a long, pale streak.

"I think the last time it was 'nothing' for either James or Sirius was the day before they were born. What are they doing?" Hermione asked dryly, reaching for her bag and preparing to give chase to the mischievous duo and their mismatched third.

"No, actually, they really aren't...Gryffindor's having a Valentine's Day Bash," he blurted, changing the subject mid-sentence, as soon as his nerve mounted.

Hermione blinked at the abrupt change of direction. She knew about the party, of course, having heard Trina and other girls in her dormitory giggling about it behind their closed curtains, and she had seen flickers of dress robes made in satin and shining silk as they whispered and shrieked and swapped clothes. But when she had casually asked Lily if she were going, the red-headed witch had given her a blank look and answered, "With whom?" which had opened and closed the subject for both of them. They had a tentative plan to do some Arithmancy work that evening when their bedroom was sure to be silent, owing to the large amount of noise being made in the common room.

"I know," Hermione said hesitantly, suddenly wondering with a faint apprehension where this was leading.

"And there's a Hogsmeade trip that day," he continued.

"Right." Another pause punctuated their halting conversation, and to relieve the tension and hopefully some of his anxiety, she lowered her voice and leaned closer to him to murmur, "Don't worry - none of the ingredients we buy have to be used fresh for this potion. You guys can go to the party, we'll brew it on the Sunday afterwards."

"No, no," he sighed. "That's not - I mean - I was wondering..."_Just say it!_ his mind screamed at him. Frustrated with his fumbling, he finally shoved the question off his tongue: "Would you come with me?"

"Oh!" She sat back, relieved that it wasn't more serious and caught utterly off guard. "To Hogsmeade? Or to the party?" she asked, her voice automatically filling space so that she could think without the weight of an awkward silence.

"Well...both, really. We'll all be in Hogsmeade together anyway, and there's a really good new Greek place I could take you to for lunch, and there's supposed to be dancing and games at the party..." His mouth had run away with him, and Remus hastily closed it before he could make too big a fool out of himself.

Hermione had cocked her head to one side while listening, and she smiled at him as he colored worse than before and fastened his eyes back on his china. "Yeah, I'll go with you. It'll be fun," she said, shrugging. She glanced down the table speculatively to where Lily was thumbing through their Runes text and had an idea that would make it unnecessary to explain to the other witch why she suddenly couldn't study that night. "D'you reckon you could get Ludo's friend Walt to ask Lily?"

"The Beater? Why?" Remus asked, perplexed.

"'Cause he's good at Potions and Arithmancy," she replied, rising and slinging her bag over her shoulder, "and Lily thinks he's cute. Come on. James and Sirius are probably waiting to jump on us right outside the door, but they were right. We do only have two minutes 'til Potions."

888

"Are you being Miss Kassandra Zabini?" The high pitched voice behind her made Kassandra jump, fingers slipping as she tried to tie her bathrobe, her cry of surprise clipped and short as she pressed her lips together, annoyed at the house-elf's abrupt appearance. One rarely saw them here, being as students from the old families were forbidden from bringing their personal elves to the castle, and those employed by the school kept themselves well out of the way of students and staff as they performed the chores that kept the school running.

"I am," she told the solemn-eyed little creature. And further questions on her part were not necessary, as a stick-thin arm extended, scrap of parchment clutched there, the tiny fingers wrapped around the now-scrunched paper as if it were a precious jewel.

"Mister Lucius Malfoy says to give this to you," the elf squeaked, and as soon as Kassandra lifted the paper from the elf's fist, it disappeared with a _crack_. Kassandra eyed the short note with extreme misgiving, tempted to throw it directly into the fire without reading it. She had made a thorough effort in avoiding Slytherin's favored son this term, helped largely in this effort by the once more almost constant company of her twin, whose disdain for the heir to Britain's largest fortune was well known. Kassandra suspected Narcissa was also pleased that Malfoy's attentions had turned elsewhere yet again - the daughter of Aries Black seemed unmoved by her intended's inability to remain faithful to her now that their betrothal papers had been signed, but disliked it when Lucius seemed to be actively more interested in a particular girl than he was in her.

The burning of shame and self-disgust that always accompanied thoughts of Lucius Malfoy, a feeling that was gradually receding in minute increments with time, returned as she unfolded the scrap and read the curt message, unable to make herself throw it away unread. _Meet me at 6:30 in the Owlery on February 14th. It's just to talk_. Just to talk. He had deliberately chosen a time when everyone else would be in the Great Hall, having dinner and preparing for whatever activities that night held for them. He clearly intended the meeting to be uninterrupted...

_It's just to talk_. Painful as it was to admit, she had been a fool to think that she might be more than a diversion for him. And now it was worse, because instead of just bedding him, she had unwittingly given him valuable information...

She folded the parchment and threw it into the flames, watching the orange lick over the faintly yellowed page eagerly, hurriedly turning it a deep brown. She had yet to atone for the mistake of her revelations. She had ten days to plan how to turn his own game back on him...and it was time to discover how much and whom he knew.

888

"Guess who asked me to go with him to the Valentine's party?" Hermione grinned at Lily's genuine bounciness as the older girl entered their dormitory, the red-haired witch's maturity fading to leave only a smitten thirteen-year-old impatiently waiting for Hermione to participate in the age-old game of guesswork, books set aside on her bed cover as the door clicked closed.

"Hmmm...you mean, other than James Potter?" Hermione teased. A look of annoyance was her reward for this remark, but the other girl swiftly shrugged it away.

"I said no to _him_." Lily brushed the question away with a flutter of her hand. "Guess who else?"

"Sirius Black?"

"Hermione! I'm not joking, someone did ask me. Someone I _would_ go with," she clarified.

The older girl shrugged, eyes sparkling. "If it wasn't one of your two worst enemies, who could it be?"

"Walt Winters!" The name exploded in a breath of excitement and apprehension. "The Gryffindor Beater!"

Hermione laughed outright now, pleased with herself for her successful machinations. "I _know_ who he is. You only can't take your eyes off him every match!"

"That's not true," Lily challenged. "Sometimes I watch Ludo."

"Once an hour for about five seconds," Hermione retorted, smiling.

"Walt is much better looking," Lily responded firmly. Plans for Arithmancy study had clearly gone out of Lily's head as the younger witch strode to her trunk and flung it open in an uncharacteristic display of sudden caring for her appearance. Like Hermione, Lily woke in the morning, wiggled into whatever clean school robes were closest to hand, and washed her face swiftly. Her one concession to female vanity were the waist-length locks of rich red-gold-auburn that she carefully brushed and pulled into a plait, or clips, or a ponytail every day.

But now, she was tugging at the end of one strand of hair as she caught one side of her mouth in her teeth, and then she was pulling school robes and casual wear out of her trunk with both hands, most of it flying to drape itself over the duvet, but some of it crumpling to the floor in her enthusiasm. As she reached the bottom, she slowed, and carefully lifted out her two sets of dress robes - the ones she had worn to their first Slughorn dinner, and the much fancier ones from Cornwall, complete with elbow-length black gloves. As Lily smoothed both out on her bedclothes, Hermione cleared her throat to capture the other girl's attention.

"I guess this means no studying on the fourteenth then?"

Dismay colored Lily's jade eyes, dampening her high immediately. "Oh, Hermione - I'm so sorry...when he asked me I completely forgot-" she halted, her friend's amusement plain on her face. "What?"

"I think I'll be all right. Seeing as I have a date for the evening, too."

"What?! Why didn't you tell me before?!" Dress robes lay neat and forgotten as Lily threw herself at Hermione's bed with a shriek of delight, sitting next to her as she breathed, "Who?"

As she opened her mouth to answer, Hermione felt a warmth gifted by total contentment douse her from head to toe. Even her gradually deepening friendship with Ginny Weasley did not contain this wholly girlish and unsullied interaction. She would not hesitate to call it childish - but it was a slice of childishness she had been denied, and so drank it in all the more eagerly now. Lily was often too adult for her years, and the older girl treasured the rare moments that the other witch allowed herself to be the thirteen-year-old girl she was as she dragged Hermione with her into a world of young teenage dramas, unworried by academics and the grinding war that had wholly consumed Hermione's childhood and now seemed likely to take her adulthood as well.

"Remus."

"I knew it!" Lily cried, flopping over backwards on Hermione's bed. "He's liked you for ages, you know. Almost ever since you got here."

Hermione froze. _"He's liked you for ages."_ And she recalled how long it had taken him to work up the nerve to talk this morning, the way that he had stared so steadfastly at his plate, and she barely restrained a groan as she pressed one slender digit to her temple. She hadn't meant it like that. How could she have been so stupid as to miss the telltale signs of nervousness that she had been so quick to observe in Harry around Cho and Ginny, and in James whenever Lily walked into his line of sight?

"You and Remus will be cute together," Lily continued blithely, totally unaware of her friend's dismay. "You're both library rats, he's much nicer than the other three...and Walt asked me to go to lunch with him in Hogsmeade! Lunch! Just the two of us!"

"That's good," Hermione murmured distractedly, her mind tearing down corridors of thought in search of a polite way to extricate herself from this situation without hurting Remus and bringing down the wrath of the Marauders upon her person. She was a formidable witch, but they were more devious by far, and she doubted she could handle all of them at once.

"What's wrong?" With her friend's abrupt switch of mood, Lily had once again become the grave, serious girl that Hermione knew best, rhapsodies for Walt Winters put aside as Lily worriedly peered into Hermione's concerned face. "Hermione? Are you all right?"

"Yes...I just..." Hermione almost laughed at the absurdity of her situation. She had never been in such an awkward position, having skipped over the intrigues and romances of her classmates in favor of fighting Basilisks, Peter Pettigrew and Death Eaters. Abruptly, longing seized her violently, lodging in its familiar place between her ribs and below her heart as she thought of Ron, Ron whom she had spent the better part of two years yearning after, Ron who had recently turned his eyes to her and away from Lavender Brown after his poisoning...if only it had been him asking instead of the hapless, gentle Remus…

…and she suddenly remembered her first Defense Against the Dark Arts class her third year, the classroom warm in the late-summer afternoon sun.

Remus Lupin, her memory of his greying hair contrasting sharply with the solid brown of the present-day boy, had been calling off the list of names, familiarizing himself with their owners as each member of the class announced their presence.

_He paused when he got to her, and it seemed to her that he stumbled as he said, "Grang-" and lifted his head to stare directly at her. Thirteen-year-old Hermione had thought she'd seen surprise, amazement, a hint of unhappiness and a touch of pain glisten there._

_"I see Hermione Granger is with us already," he said quietly, and did not call her name for her response. Hermione had wondered, at the time, at the peculiar recognition he seemed to grant her - Harry was the famous one that everyone knew by sight, and the strangeness of the new professor's seeming familiarity puzzled her - but she had not asked him at the time, and as he had never looked like that again, she had become convinced that she imagined it._

Was this why? Had she hurt him over this, seven years before her birth and twenty before she would see him standing at the head of her class?

Desire to laugh vanished as suddenly as it had arrived, and, quashing the homesickness that swamped her as memories of Ron flooded through her, Hermione looked to Lily helplessly, grounding herself once more in time. "I didn't mean it like that...I...Remus is great, but I don't..." _I can't date a boy three years younger than I am who will be my professor. That's just too...unnerving._

"You don't like him like that?" Lily guessed shrewdly.

"Yes," Hermione swiftly took refuge in the age-old excuse. "That is, no, I don't."

"That's a shame. He really is perfect for you," Lily said, tapping her lips with her index finger. At this, a sound somewhere between a laugh and a snort escaped Hermione.

"He's - _we're_ - thirteen, Lily. Do you think Walt Winters is 'perfect' for you?"

"No," she admitted with a shrug, and her eyes sparkled with excitement. "But he is very good-looking, and he said he'd pay for lunch. I've never been invited on a date before. "

"By anyone except James Potter," Hermione amended.

"Who doesn't count, because he's more monkey than human," Lily countered.

"What can I tell Remus?"

"That you thought he meant going as friends," Lily told her seriously, returning to her bed to continue her appraisal of her potential dresses. "That _is_ what you thought? When he invited you?"

"Yes," Hermione replied firmly.

"So tell him that." Lily shrugged as she straightened each finger of the gloves spread on her four-poster. "But I'd do it before Valentine's Day if I were you."

888

Valentine's Day dawned clear and crisp, the sun shining over the snow in a distant way, making it glitter brilliantly and warning the staff and students of Hogwarts that the day would be bitterly cold.

Hermione sighed as she rose to dress, pulling on her robes slowly, her fingers slipping over the buttons. Lily observed this behavior, the opposite of her swift preparations, including the curled hair that fell to her mid-back in ringlets as she cast the charm on them.

"You haven't talked to him yet, have you?" she asked quietly as pushed her last bobby pin in place to hold her hair in a frame around her face, tendrils deliberately falling to brush the edges of her cheeks.

"What d'you think?" she asked, not waiting for Hermione to answer the first question as Lily nodded at her reflection and twisting her head around as far as she could to see the back.

"I think you look stunning," Hermione said honestly. "Walt isn't going to know what hit him." It was small wonder, seeing Lily look like this now, that James Potter tripped over his tongue every time she walked into the room, and Hermione recalled vividly her first impression upon seeing Lily – that she already moved like a woman, having skipped the awkward stage of adolescent clumsiness. Hermione felt a stab of surprise that others had not expressed interest in the beautiful young witch, unaware that, like herself, Lily's bookish tendencies and perfectionist attitude towards her work superceded her beauty.

"And no, I haven't talked to him yet," she said softly.

"Do it on the way into Hogsmeade."

"Right. With all of his friends standing there."

"Good point. Well...do it before the dance."

"Yeah," Hermione agreed half-heartedly, giving her appearance a cursory check in the mirror, knowing that, next to Lily, she looked drab and dull. She had been dreading the idea of the sure-to-be awkward conversation with Remus so ardently that she had avoided the Marauders as much as possible over the past few days, something that was growing increasingly harder as their keenness to continue researching how to become Animagi had them actively seeking her company every moment that Quidditch and class did not occupy them.

"Come on!" Lily demanded impatiently from the door. "We're making them wait!"

Feeling that she would happily make them wait all day if it weren't for the ingredients she needed from the apothecary and the book she needed from Folio's, Hermione reluctantly followed her excited friend down the spiral staircase.

888

"Looks like Loony Lupin has got himself a _girlfriend_," Michael Avery drawled as the Slytherins jostled past them on the road to Hogsmeade, Lestrange ensuring that his shoulder collided with Peter's, sending the smaller, rounder boy sprawling face first into the snow. Remus dropped Hermione's hand to help him up as he sputtered, James, Sirius and Hermione placing themselves between Peter and their Slytherin tormentors, wands out. They were barely outside the gates of the school, and Hermione tossed the wrought-iron spikes a swift glance, hoping that none of the chaperones were close at hand to be paying attention to this not-quite-unexpected altercation between students.

"Shove off with your dogs, Lestrange," Sirius spat, long, willow wand pointed directly at the acknowledged leader of the pack.

"What did you call me, Black?" Tim Wilkes had his wand out now as well, Avery and Rosier were drawing theirs, and Lestrange was rolling his between his palms as if contemplating it, a would-be casual gesture that fooled no one. For a long moment none of them moved in the chilly morning air, unwilling to be the first to break the rules about fighting, but equally incapable of backing down.

Snape was next through the gate, flanked by both of his cousins, who walked perhaps five paces behind him, deep in conversation.

"Great. Snivellus," James muttered out of the side of his mouth.

"_Don't_ call him that," Hermione snarled. Sirius and James exchanged exasperated looks.

"In-fighting? Dear me, whatever next?" Lestrange smirked at Hermione. "What does it matter to you what they call him?"

"I've had enough foul names sent my way to last me a lifetime," she responded coolly.

Snape had halted to assess the situation, taking in Remus and Peter still crouched in the snow behind the front rank of Gryffindors protecting them shoulder-to-shoulder. He felt something burn within him as he looked at Hermione, scarf fluttering away from her head to loose her plaited hair, ears already reddening with the cold.

"Snape." Lestrange greeted him without taking his eyes from the Gryffindor triad.

"Les. You seem to be having a touch of trouble with Potty and his merry men."

"Your assistance would not be remiss," Lestrange replied in a light tone.

"Wouldn't it?" Snape had made no move for his wand, and, looking towards the trio once more, he saw their triangle had shifted, leaving him facing the American witch who increasingly haunted him. He crossed his arms in a gesture of refusal to join the fight, and, ten seconds later, he was extremely glad he had done so.

Through the snow billowed Professors McGonagall and Flitwick, their escorts for this trip, and no sooner had her red robes appeared over the hill than McGonagall was running towards them, angry impatience clear in her tone, though wind carried away the words before they could reach the group of students who were hastily stowing their wands, as if their professors didn't know precisely what they were up to.

"...five minutes and you're already at it! Potter, Black, Lestrange – I see those wands! Pettigrew, stand up, boy! Are you hurt?" He shook his head to indicate the negative, and she turned away from him to glower at the entire group in turn. "Twenty-five points from Gryffindor for fighting, Thirty-five from Slytherin-" A cry of outrage rose at this injustice, only to have Professor McGonagall silence it with a wave of her hand that took in the four boys that comprised Slytherin's pack and Snape and his cousins. "There are more of you," she snapped curtly.

"Professor?" Hermione ventured quietly, "Snape and the Zabinis weren't fighting."

Total silence greeted this unexpected slice of honesty, and Hermione looked past her mildly astonished professor to meet the black eyes of Klytemnestra Zabini. She could feel the other girl weighing her, wondering what prompted this generosity, and what Hermione would expect in exchange for it.

"Thank you, Miss Granger." McGonagall recovered herself and corrected the takings. "Make that twenty points from Slytherin and five points to Gryffindor for telling me the truth. And a detention for all of you." Her sweeping finger took in the nine combatants. Sirius and James looked positively mutinous at this pronouncement, especially as Snape stood behind their Transfiguration teacher, features stamped with sheer delight at witnessing their punishment.

"I don't know what will keep you from this kind of irresponsible, irrational behavior," the older witch lectured tiredly. "We've tried everything with you, Potter and Black. And you, too, Lestrange." She turned her dark eyes on Hermione, disappointment glittering strongly in their depths. "And you, Miss Granger. I would have thought you'd have better sense than to join in this childishness. Potter, Black, Wilkes and Rosier, you will report to Filch on Monday night for your detention. Granger, Lupin, Pettigrew, Lestrange and Avery, you will report to Hagrid. They will expect you at eight o'clock sharp. Lateness will result in a further loss of House points. Have I made myself perfectly clear?"

Nine heads bobbed up and down precisely once, the students waiting as her judgment hung in the air, legs tensing to bolt. When it was obvious she had nothing more to say, the two rival Houses turned firmly from one another and hurried to continue their trek across the snow, leaving their professors behind them to shake their heads and roll their eyes.

Snape fell into step behind the Slytherins, far enough back not to have to speak to them, close enough to observe the group of Gryffindors creating a parallel track not thirty feet away, James and Sirius breaking the trail and occasionally floundering in snow up to their knees for their trouble, laughing as they wrestled with one another, their black heads thick with clumps of white.

He was watching when Remus Lupin reached for Hermione and tangled his fingers in hers, and his black eyes took in the shyly pleased smile that graced the quiet boy's features. The Slytherin halted dead, unaware of his legs sinking into the snow as it collapsed under him, an emotion comprised of searing hatred and desire flooding through him, darkening his vision, making it difficult to breathe with its weight and ferocity. Granger was looking at the other boy, her face and reaction obscured from Snape, but he couldn't tear his eyes from their co-mingled fingers until the figures had grown too small to make out the detail, and only then did rational thought start infringing on blind emotion.

He stood in the cold until he was sure he had his envy under control, and continued towards Hogsmeade at a slower pace, unaware of his cousins observing his reaction and trading glances, the brightness of his day permanently dimmed.

888

Hermione cursed soundly and almost silently as she stood in the apothecary, staring at the empty display case, and closest to her, Sirius placed a hand on her back in concern.

"What is it?" he asked quietly.

"They don't have crushed elderflower," she sighed. "And we can't make the potion without it."

Sirius groaned aloud, a sound quickly silenced as Hermione shushed him. They had already waited so long to brew it, he felt his patience would snap under the strain if they had to waste another day.

"Do they order it in? Maybe James and I could sneak out with the Invisibility Cloak if they're going to get a new stock soon," he suggested.

Hermione hesitated, unwilling to outright condone their insistence on breaking every rule they could, but knowing they needed the crushed leaves if they were to continue, and the next Hogsmeade weekend wouldn't be for at least another ten weeks.

"We can ask," she conceded, blowing a long breath as the need to help Remus won over her ingrained compulsion for obedience. She approached the clerk behind the counter and smiled shyly. "Will you be getting a new stock of elderflower leaves soon?"

"Elderflower?" He reached for a complicated-looking table and ran one stubby finger across the parchment. "Not soon, as it's not a product we have a lot of demand for...next order is due in five weeks." He glanced at her. "School project?"

"Er...yes," she lied, frowning with displeasure. "Thank you."

She rejoined the boys on the other side of the small, musty shop. "Verdict?" Remus muttered.

"No good. Five weeks until the next order arrives."

"Five weeks?" James sputtered. "That's forever from now. Can we order it from Diagon Alley?"

"Yeah - but it's the price plus shipping if we get it from the apothecary there, which I was hoping to avoid," Hermione sighed.

"I'll cover it," Sirius volunteered immediately. "You know money's no object with me." She smiled wearily, grateful for Sirius' complete selflessness when it came to the needs of his friends. His eyes had brightened with this new plan, all the impatience of a teenage boy clear in his immediate need to _do_ something. "We can go to the post office now and send an order with one of their owls." He straightened to his full height and looked around the shop. "Is everything else here?"

"Yes," Hermione answered. "I'm going to pay for this stuff. Wait for me at the post office." Galleons and Sickles tumbled into her hands from theirs as each of the boys made their contribution to the purchase and filed out the door to run their next errand, sprinting towards the post office in a rush of streaming black cloaks and red-and-gold scarves, Peter predictably lagging behind, his pudgy middle and short legs in sharp contrast with the slender, long forms of his friends.

As she stepped back towards the counter, she found herself behind a lean figure with long, dark hair buying a number of the ingredients commonly required for third-year Potions students. She hesitated, the long fingers she had observed for so many years in a dungeon classroom tapping the pitted, stained wood, apparently oblivious that she stood directly behind him. Much as she did not trust his cousins, Snape's face had told its own story of betrayal and surprise that night in the rose garden, and Hermione felt that she needed his help as much now as she had when she had arrived. But he seemed ill-inclined to do more than shadow her, and she had come to the conclusion that she would have to move first.

"Snape," she finally greeted him.

He did not startle, and his slow turn around confirmed that his failure to acknowledge her had been a deliberate choice, not out of ignorance of her presence.

"Granger." The coldness in tone and eyes solidified as dread in her abdomen. He had not been so distant with her since before he had heard her sing, and she thought she saw hurt underlying the ice in his black gaze.

Snape could not help the next words that tumbled from his mouth, shaped to wound. "Where's your boyfriend? Shouldn't he be licking your heels with the rest of your friends?"

Hermione recoiled from the verbal slap, and, her defenses honed after six years of word battles with Draco Malfoy, wrapped her own exterior of indifference over the sharp, unsettling pain of having caused him grief. She purposefully chose not to correct his misimpression of her relationship with Remus, fire rising to meet ice. "They're doing something else, Snape." She flickered a glance towards a shelf not far off where his cousins lingered, absorbed in weighing mercury and counting unicorn hairs. "Unlike you, I don't need bodyguards at my beck and call."

"Your total is nine Galleons, seven Sickles and ten Knuts," the clerk interrupted them cheerfully, unaware of the battle going on in front of his nose.

Snape paid without looking at the man, tilted his head with a sneer at Hermione, and departed. The girl watched him leave, his robes catching the wind at the doorframe to widen and fill the bottom area with black before the door slammed on his heels.

"Erm...miss?" the clerk prompted.

"Sorry." Hermione turned back to the counter, placing her items on the wooden top. She barely paid attention as the man rang her up and she passed him money without thinking. It was the first time she had spoken to Snape since the fight, and, if the hardness of his voice told the whole story, his cousins seemed to have turned him against her.

But there had been something else there, a new look, a clearer, harder tenor to his glance, than he had had while in the library not two weeks before. Some factor had clearly changed since then to turn him from uncertainty to dislike, and she could only guess at what had caused the difference.

888

Kassandra mounted the stairs to the Owlery with growing misgiving, moving slower with every ascended step. She had never sent Lucius a reply, but the look he had slanted her today as they passed each other in Honeydukes made it clear that he was expecting her, the same way one would expect a bitch puppy trained to heel to come when called. She had not told Klytemnestra anything about his note. Her twin would have tried to talk her out of going, and now Kassandra wondered why she hadn't given her the chance.

She fingered the wand in her robe pocket, reassuring herself that the dueling lessons she had taken every summer since her tenth birthday had adequately prepared her if Lucius tried to use force. _Just to talk_. She took a moment, hand on the Owlery door, to quietly damn her consuming curiosity. She had never 'just talked' to Lucius Malfoy, and his inclusion of that assurance in the message had tipped the scales, ensuring her willingness to respond to him.

Swallowing the part of her that was inclined to simply back down the stairs and go to dinner, she pushed open the wooden door and entered the tower that smelled of feathers, bird droppings and damp from the constantly open windows, shivering as the wind greeted her entrance by swooping along her neck, lifting her hair and sending cold down her spine.

"Kassandra." Lucius' voice sounded its usual blend of honey-and-milk smoothness, and as Kassandra really looked at him for the first time in the six weeks since she had stopped sleeping with him, she wondered how she had ever found the too-coifed, coldly-patrician features attractive enough to bed in the first place. He exemplified their House emblem, a snake from his boots to his silver-coated tongue, and she shuddered faintly, unease peaking.

"Malfoy," she returned coolly. "You wanted to talk?"

"Yes," he replied, and a frowning creased his pale forehead. "I have a question for you about music."

Unexpected bitterness choked her, and Kassandra beat back sudden disappointment, furious with herself. Of course it was about music. She didn't know why she should have expected it to be anything else. She opened her mouth to snap that music was a subject she would never again discuss with him, and hesitated. If she really wanted to know what he knew, she had to string him along, not shut him out. She changed direction before her vocal cords could respond scathingly, and her reply came out neutrally instead.

"Of course. I guessed as much. What, about music, precisely? And why?"

"I need to know how to bind a musician's power," the Malfoy heir replied.

Kassandra's eyebrows hit her hairline. His reply was both direct and risky, and it was unlike the boy she knew to be so honest. "How much power?"

"A lot."

"Who?" she asked. He slotted her a glance, his grey eyes cold and troubled, and shook his head.

"You don't need to know." In the half-light of torches and snow reflecting the last, late-evening rays of sunlight, Kassandra saw that the features she had passed as his normal, refined looks were, in fact, a shade too sharp and slightly nervous, as if he were under great strain and not eating enough. Her mental evaluation of his situation climbed. Seemingly unflappable, he was the ruler in any student situation, and Kassandra seriously doubted the pressure came from within. Who or what was he beholden to outside the castle walls?

"I beg to differ. We both know that Kly and I are musicians. I will not help you work against us."

He tilted his head in acknowledgement of her statement and waited a moment before he replied quietly, "The American. Hermione Granger."

Kassandra's interest sharpened abruptly as, for the first time, she considered giving him what he wanted. Two months ago, she had been furious when he had persevered over the transfer-in witch, jealous of her status as his only lover. Now, however, she and her sister had their own problems with the intelligent third-year Gryffindor. Her knowledge of the Concilium, a society that had to remain secret due to its very nature, was too puzzling for comfort, and the clear head she had for research and puzzle-solving was bound to yield future difficulties as she discovered some nugget of information relating to their family. Klytemnestra had spoken of the virtuosic talent and power of the other witch's voice, which was, in all likelihood, the reason Mrozcek had been interested in speaking to Hermione to begin with.

And here stood Lucius Malfoy, offering to essentially put an end to all their troubles at one stroke. For him to remove her from the picture was almost too perfect a solution - bloodless and blameless for Kassandra and her twin.

And her cousin...he might be broken-hearted in the manner of young teens for a week or two, but today he had been left to stand cold and alone in the snow as she walked off hand-in-hand with one of the Gryffindor brats she counted amongst her friends, and Kassandra's resolve hardened.

"What do you intend to do with her?" Kassandra carefully kept her tone bland.

"Granger? There is...someone...who wants to meet her very badly, and she will not accompany me by invite, so I'm afraid I will have to use a different...method of persuasion."

"Who wants to meet her?"

"I cannot say," he returned, and the firmness of both eyes and voice told Kassandra that she would not get him to reveal this name. She switched to the topic that truly interested her.

"Will she be leaving Hogwarts?"

"Yes."

"For good?" the black-haired girl pressed.

He dipped his head in the affirmative and gave her a strange look, one corner of his mouth twitching. "Do you hate her so much? Why is it important to you that she be gone?"

"Reasons of my own," she replied lightly. She could almost hear the beat of the dance, could feel the movement in her taut body, point and counterpoint, the exchange of information between two people who knew precisely what value it had, cooperated only because they had to, and were playing for high stakes.

"Elaborate?"

"What will you give me in return?" She directed the conversation away from her dislike of Hermione Granger. Lucius did not need a soliloquy on the subject - she did not think that he was aware of her cousin's interest in the girl, and did not intend to tell him. Let him presume it was leftover jealousy.

"For telling me how to subdue her?" Kassandra nodded once. He eyed her warily, and asked cautiously, "What do you want?"

The dark witch considered him seriously. The sparseness of his conversation betrayed him. In the circles they inhabited, one only asked directly for something when one cared very little about receiving it or else desperately needed it within a given time constraint. The pinched quality of his mouth, the frustration in his eyes when he spoke of the transferred-in witch told her that it was not the former. Lucius was clearly under intense pressure to deliver her, and so Kassandra knew that her price for her knowledge could climb.

The answers to his questions were a direct threat to many in her family, and loyalty to bloodline had been long trained into the young woman. "If I tell you, you must swear an oath not to come near anyone who bears the same blood I do, and never to use this against them."

"You included?" he asked a shade snidely, using his sarcasm to cover how deeply he cared about the answer. A blood oath of restraint was not one to be made lightly. His wand would not work against any of her family, including Snape, if he swore, nor would his fists. It was a high price to pay for the information he needed...but this was his last chance of capturing the American witch instead of presenting his master with the second-best choice, either the girl standing in front of him, or her twin - and the oath would put them permanently out of his reach.

But the reward would be all the sweeter if he could hand over the girl the Dark Lord truly wanted…

"I have to be exempt," she replied, contempt coloring her voice. "You will not be capable of performing the magic yourself - unless you are hiding some musical prowess I am unaware of."

"To bind a musician you have to be one?" he asked, incredulous irritation in his tone, even as some part of him acknowledged that it was far from surprising to discover this prerequisite.

"Of course. Your blood oath?"

He looked into her black eyes and saw the same arrogant, unyielding firmness that Klytemnestra always draped around her, and the coldness that was identical to her younger cousin's. Even in his desperation, he could admire the aloof composure that dictated the terms of her compliance, and he knew their careful dance had come to an end. No choices. His polished wand flashed almost gold in the light of the setting sun, and a strip of red slashed across his white palm, crimson trickling into the creases of his lifeline and joints. Crimson met crimson as she split her hand to match his, and they clasped, scarlet smearing and seeping through cracks in their palms to drip to the floor, spots freckling the wood.

"My oath to your bloodline, that my wand and my fist should never be raised against one of you," he whispered, and his wand, held in his left hand, flared, the yellow light of a protection spell streaming from it to soak into their joined hands.

As the after-tingle faded, they dropped arms immediately, wands healing the tissue so that nothing but vermillion strips remained on either's skin.

"So. Tell me."


	15. Trap Laid

Disclaimer: Not mine, making no money.

A/N: Many thanks to my beta, Trinka! Please read and enjoy!

Trap Laid

"Sirius," James hissed from across the table, claiming their attention with his urgent snap, a look of wounded disbelief followed by unhappiness alighting on his face as he jabbed his friend in the ribs with a sharp elbow, his quick nod indicating what he was seeing.

Rubbing his ribcage and muttering under his breath, Sirius swiveled his head to follow James' glance. In a unified motion, eyes drawn by the attention of the two boys, Hermione, Remus and Peter looked as well.

"Is that _Walt_ with Evans?" Sirius asked, bruised body forgotten as he twisted fully, torquing his spine and abandoning his excellently bred manners.

"I can't believe this. He _knows_ I like her," James whispered indignantly. Hermione smiled to herself, watching Lily's curls bounce, reflecting the candlelight as she walked down the length of the Great Hall, hand tucked into the crook of Walt Winters' arm, head cocked as she listened attentively to some words none of them could make out. Without a glance for the group of boys staring at her, she drew level with them and passed them by, allowing her date for the evening to help her into her seat towards the far end of the table near Ludo Bagman.

"Why would he do this to me?" James was moaning, the food appearing in front of them completely ignored in favor of watching the girl of his dreams chattering eagerly with the other boy.

"Bad form, that," Sirius agreed sagely. "Moving in on her. Especially with you guys on the team together."

"I know. I've staked her out. He knows I have." Next to Hermione, Remus shifted guiltily, the unknown agent of his friend's distress. After all, it had been he who had spoken to Ludo, and the round-faced Quidditch captain had delightedly told Remus that Walt had, in fact, been eyeing Lily for some months, trying to work up the nerve to invite her out.

Hermione rolled her eyes at this overt, dramatic display of disappointment at Walt having broken the complicated rules of honor that govern teenage boys and rose, grabbing a roll to assuage her grumbling stomach. Her first instinct was to visit the library and continue her research regarding the still elusive Mr. Zabini, but a hand settled over hers as she stood to go, smooth fingertips brushing over the back of her hand in a gesture of comfortable possession and query, and she swallowed a groan. His touch was a physical reminder of the task she had left unfinished, the chore she had been avoiding that she had to handle before either of them did something spectacularly embarrassing. Pushing aside the large part of her that urged her simply to run to her haven, she spoke instead.

"Remus, want to go for a walk while these guys indulge in their pity party?"

"Sure," he agreed readily, reaching for the bread basket that had appeared in front of his face a few moments before, and picking up his goblet full of pumpkin juice. They were forbidden to carry cutlery and dinnerware from the Great Hall, but in the confusion surrounding the beginning of the feast, necks craning and whispers scurrying from table to table about new couples and – more importantly – those who were _not_ coupled and should have been, no one noticed the small cup clutched in his hand as he followed her out.

She blindly started for the side door, almost instinctively needing the freedom and privacy of the sky and the grounds, and stopped herself. The low shafts of light still streaming through the windows pooled in orange squares, the color of the setting sun, and the day had indeed been biting, the wind piercing cloaks and charms. It would only be getting colder now as the sun dipped towards the horizon. She changed direction and instead went up the stairs, her feet treading another familiar path towards the library, Remus at her side.

888

As Hermione rounded the corner with Remus Lupin, Kassandra was descending the staircase that led to the owlery. Her hand itched faintly with the after-effects of Lucius' promise, and she curled her fingers, as if she could wrap them around her intangible goal. She had debated for a moment telling her twin about her meeting with Malfoy and the fruits it had yielded, and almost instantly decided against it. Much as she treasured their re-established closeness, Kassandra knew her sister would never approve of her actions, and she might warn Granger. Kassandra had seen the look of wary surprise on Klytemnestra's face this morning when the younger witch had defended them to Professor McGonagall, and her sister's firm sense of fair play – something Kassandra was discovering she lacked – might cause her to spoil their plan.

And for the future - should Granger ever figure out who was behind her removal - the fewer people implicated, the better.

Kassandra barely heard the voices as her foot reached for the bottom of the stairs, and she snatched it back before it could betray her position, head cocked as she listened intently, something about the cadence of the female voice was irritatingly familiar…

Granger. Walking with her new boyfriend. A grim smile of satisfaction turned the corners of her mouth, the hard ruthlessness she had inherited from her father pronounced in her eyes. It was an expression Klytemnestra hated – not for what it was, but for what it invariably foretold.

Luck stood with her tonight. The first step towards getting rid of the girl was knowing when and where they could do it. And for that they needed...

Kassandra folded herself into the shadow of the stone wall, hoping that Granger's course with Lupin would not bring her to the Owlery, and thus face-to-face with the raven-haired witch. She could hear her own heartbeat, the blood that seemed too loud rushing in her ears as their voices grew louder, though still muffled, as if they were trying to have a private conversation in the large, public space.

They did not glance in the Slytherin's direction as they passed, and she pointed the wand hidden in her sleeve towards the younger girl. A whispered spell sent a faint ghost of light to catch onto Granger's tangled hair, glow brighter at contact, and fade as it soaked into the strands. Kassandra waited until they had rounded the corner, walls interrupting her view of the absorbed pair, and murmured another spell. Her wand spun towards where they were walking, and continued to slowly inscribe a circle in the air as they moved farther away, the point tracing Hermione.

Kassandra pushed the narrow strip of wood into her pocket with determination, her eyes diamond sharp and glittering like obsidian.

888

Unaware of the Locator Hex making the ends of her hair flare with silver fire, Hermione was nervously composing herself, wishing fervently that she had begged off going to the bash tonight in favor of Arithmancy study. Her books seemed like paradise in comparison to the silence she had allowed to become oppressive as she continued to delay.

"Remus…" she started hesitantly as he strode next to her. Hermione was grateful that he seemed to sense her mood, for he had not reached to take her hand or wrap an arm around her waist. She glanced around, saw the passageway was empty, and inhaled deeply, a diver preparing to plunge.

"Remus, I'm flattered you asked me to the dance tonight, and you're a great friend-"

"Somehow, I think I know where this is headed," he cut her off dryly, sipping his pumpkin juice. "But you want to go as friends. Not like we're together."

She almost visibly winced at the swallowed disappointment she heard in the treble of his voice, in his reaching for an aloofness that did not quite pass as genuine. But truth was truth, and she had allowed her cowardice to still her tongue for long enough.

"Yes." The word left her mouth in a _whoosh_ of sound, carried on a breath she didn't know she was holding. "Is that okay?"

"Of course." Another sip of juice, and then he frowned, hurt and puzzlement married on his features. "But why didn't you tell me when I asked you?"

"When you first asked, I thought you meant as friends. I've never…at my old school…I haven't been asked out a lot," she stumbled lamely, searching for the right way to express herself without giving away any details. "And then, when I figured it out…I felt so stupid, and I didn't want to hurt your feelings."

He smiled. "Thank you for your consideration. They're a bit battered, but I think they'll be all right."

"I'm sorry, Remus." The sincerity in her voice soothed him and the grin stretched to finally light his eyes.

"I'll just have to stand in a corner tonight and pine away with James, both of us dying for the love of a woman," he said dramatically, throwing the hand with a bread roll across his forehead like a distressed damsel from a 1930's melodrama. "Whatever shall we do, when the lights of our lives are engaged elsewhere?"

"All right, Romeo," she laughed, cutting short his performance as he made to drop to one knee in his pathos. "Let's go back to dinner." She checked her watch. "It's been almost twenty minutes. Hopefully James will have stopped brooding."

888

James had _not_ stopped brooding, and he sulked all night, throwing jealous glares from a darkened corner where he stood ensconced with Peter, muttering dire imprecations under his breath. Though highly unpopular with the girls of her dormitory, Sirius seemed to be the rest of Gryffindor House's idea of Hogwarts' Most Eligible Bachelor, and he barely left the dance floor to attend to his best friend as he partnered nearly every girl in the room – including Hermione, who delighted in the party now that she was no longer worried about Remus. At some point, she had seen Lily's red curls slipping out the Fat Lady with Walt, and Hermione made a mental note to ask her roommate about it the following day.

Breakfast time came – James still sullenly shoving his kippers around his plate as he sipped his coffee – and with it, the mail. A smart-looking owl dropped an envelope on Sirius' plate, stuck out its leg to allow the yawning wizard to put five Knuts in the small leather bag tied there, and took off again.

"What is it?" Hermione asked curiously, fingers already stretched towards the envelope in anticipation.

"From the apothecary in Diagon Alley," Sirius replied, voice still heavy with sleep. He squinted at the ceiling, which was currently filled with the warm light of a full-strength winter sun. "How can it be so bright this early in the morning?"

"Sirius Black, it's ten o'clock!" Hermione said with affectionate exasperation. "Just because we chose not to go to sleep until three am doesn't make it early now!" She tilted her chin towards the paper. "What did they say?"

He slit the envelope, scanned the message and rolled his eyes, tossing the short, crisply folded parchment onto the table. As one, the other four leaned in to read it.

"They don't have it?" James said in disbelief, irritation at this new obstacle replacing his pouting over Lily immediately.

"Is there anywhere else we can get it from?" Sirius groaned.

"I don't think so. At least, not easily. We might have to wait until Hogsmeade has a new shipment," Hermione replied, her mouth twisting in annoyance. Elderflower was hardly an obscure plant…but it was not a commonly used ingredient in potion making as the acidic pollen interacted poorly with many minerals.

She drummed her fingers on the table as she thought, half-listening as Sirius and James roundly abused every apothecary they could think of for not carrying what they needed.

"Well," she said to no one in particular. "If that's all, I'm going to the library."

"Hermione, it's Sunday," James said, his bafflement clear in his voice. "Why are you working?"

"You know, if you spent half the time on the Quidditch pitch that you do on your essays, you'd be a world-class flyer," Sirius added.

"Be that as it may, flying makes me queasy and unlike Quidditch, our professors _care_that we complete our schoolwork. And, in case you've forgotten, we have a detention tomorrow night," she responded. "I want to get my homework done before then."

888

Hagrid was standing the in Great Hall when Hermione, Remus and Peter hurried in to meet him. Hermione started to smile, to call a familiar greeting, and stopped herself right before the words left her lips, a faint feeling of disappointment ghosting through her as she stilled her tongue. But the Hermione who was friends with Hagrid did not exist here-and-now, and she had had almost no interaction with half-giant since her arrival six months ago. A sudden sense of loss spiked through her, and she allowed it to wash over her and fade to a dull regret as the look he turned on them was kind, but impersonally so.

As they stopped in front of him, Hagrid pulled out a large, tarnishing pocket watch that was almost the size of Hermione's face, and she was surprised to discover that she had actually forgotten how large he really was. Dwarfed by the soaring towers of the castle, the massive mountains and ancient trees as he went about his duties as Keeper of the Keys, it was easy to forget after glimpsing him for months only through the windows or briefly at dinner.

"Righ' on time," he smiled approvingly, and glanced at a scrap of paper that had probably been crisp when the possession of Professor McGonagall, but now bore water marks and dirt streaks from his handling, and had one corner shredded – likely lost to the claws of yet another creature that Hagrid would call interesting while the rest of the world classified it with a triple-X warning. 'We're waitin' fer two more.' He shook his great head, black beard swaying back and forth. 'Slytherins.' He winked at them. 'I reckon you lot gave 'em no more'n they deserved, eh?'

Peter and Remus both laughed, and Hermione could not contain her smile. Twenty years would only further entrench Hagrid's dismal view of the serpents' House, and given what they had discovered during the second opening of the Chamber of Secrets, Hermione was unsurprised that he already had a negative attitude towards them.

The double doors opened once again, and Lestrange and Avery raced in. They doubled over as they reached Hagrid, and Hermione, Peter and Remus traded glances at their theatrical wheezing. Even if they had run all the way from the Slytherin common room, they were not this out of breath. But Hermione quickly called to mind Draco Malfoy's slurs and insults – more directed at Hagrid than any other Hogwarts professor – and it seemed that, like many things, doubting the kind-hearted man's intelligence had passed from one generation to the next.

"Stan' up," he ordered them gruffly, glancing back at his watch again before stowing it in his pocket. "Yer three minutes late, so that'll be another three points from each o' yeh fer makin' us wait." Both boys were upright in a flash, anger replacing the flush from running in their cheeks as six emeralds flew upwards in the Slytherin hourglass.

"Come on," the big man ordered, starting for one of the many side doors that would lead them outside.

"What are we doing for detention tonight?" Hermione asked, and hastily tacked on a, "Sir," as she realized her tone had been far too conversational for the person he thought she was.

"Gatherin' a few things fer Professor Sprout in th' fores'," Hagrid rumbled his reply as he started across the law, forging another path through the unbroken snow, his wide passage allowing Hermione and Remus to walk behind him side-by-side.

"Aw, that's so cute," Hermione heard Lestrange drawl behind them. "A moon-lit stroll together. How romantic."

Hermione felt Remus tense next to her, and saw both him and Peter automatically glance skyward, even though the full moon was another week and a half away, and it was a slightly-more-than-half orb that shed cold, pale light over the refracting snowscape.

"They even have a chaperone," Avery sniggered, indicating Hagrid.

"Tha's enough talk," Hagrid growled from his place in front of them, turning around to glower at the boys insolently bringing up the rear and keeping themselves fifteen feet behind the Gryffindors in front of them. "Yer not out here on a social jaunt, you two. We have plants ter gather. Now, here," he thrust several pages of parchment at each of them. Shivering, gloved fingers extending to take them, the five students gathered around him in a close-packed half-circle, dislike suspended in favor of warmth.

"Are we going into the forest?" Avery's tone quavered slightly, and Peter looked positively panic-stricken at this suggestion.

Hagrid gave the Slytherin a contemptuous look. "O' course. Yeh don' see these lyin' around on the snow, do yeh? But on'y a few hun'red yards. All of these plants can be found in th' outer layer of the forest, just past th' unnergrowth but long before yeh find th' really big trees. Don' get too far in. Most things are hibernatin' just now, but there're some nasty things in there that never sleep."

"Can we go in pairs?" Hermione asked quietly. She had served her first-ever detention in the forest, although the circumstances then had been far worse – they had been hunting Voldemort, albeit in the form of Professor Quirrell – and she had been comforted by the presence of first Harry and then Neville as companions.

"Natur'ly," he replied good-naturedly. "An' use yer wands ter keep yerselves warm and light up where yer searching. Did yer bring knives?"

Five silver blades gleamed in the wand light, and Hagrid nodded. "Good. Go to it. We have three hours ter get everything on yer lists. If yeh collect it faster, yeh can finish earlier."

Remus and Peter had both scooted closer to Hermione when she had asked the question about partners, and now, so smoothly it looked coordinated, both turned to her, mouths open to stream faint clouds of heat in the frozen air.

"I'm sure all three of us can go together," she cut them both off and started for the tree line only a few paces in front of them. The boys, looking quite relieved at this solution, followed.

When he would think about it years later, Remus Lupin would recall this moment as one of many where Hermione did not fully make sense to him. The swiftness with which she moved towards the forbidding, gnarled branches iced with frost, and the ease of her stride and straight, unafraid slant of her shoulders indicated a knowledge of the place too intimate for her short span of time at Hogwarts, and spoke of a confidence that no thirteen-year-old girl could possess.

But even as his brain absorbed the image of her silhouette against stars and frozen trees, his cold feet hurried him forward into the forest, the more immediate concern of completing his task so that he could get inside and sit by the fire overriding his need to puzzle through his new friend.

"I found the silver jewelweed!" Peter announced delightedly ahead of him. Hermione wand tip joined that of Peter, and Remus saw the crystallized sigh rather than hearing her exhale.

"No, Peter. It's the right color, this silver-blue, but remember what Professor Sprout said about jewelweed last week in Herbology? It has four leaves. This has seven."

"Oh," Peter's face fell, but Hermione wasn't paying attention. She was examining the flower more closely, a look of incredulous surprise on her face.

When she looked up at Remus, she was grinning. "On the other hand, elderflower is almost the same color – generally a little more purple than jewelweed – and_does_ have seven leaves. You found it, Peter!"

"What?" Peter blinked, baffled at this sudden turnabout from correction to praise.

"Elderflower?" breathed Remus, kneeling next to Hermione, the snow melting through his outer robe ignored as he stared at the vine wrapping a slender trunk. "We can use this for the potion?"

"I'll have to harvest and dry it, but yes," she replied, eyes shining. Remus' blade was already stretching for it, ready to skin the many flowers from the vine with a sweep of his arm, but Hermione's hand stopped him.

"Not now. Hagrid is taking everything we get tonight, and students aren't allowed to take herbs directly from the forest for personal use. I can come back another time this week."

"Let me help," Remus said.

"Probably not," Hermione shook her head. "One is much less noticeable than a crowd, and you know that if Sirius and James hear about it, they'll come too."

"You don't want to tell them?" Remus said in surprise. "After they've been harping non-stop for the past two days?"

"Of course I do. _After_ I get it," she responded with a smile.

"Less chatterin' an' more gatherin'!" Hagrid bellowed from fifty feet away. The three of them jumped guiltily, but Hermione heard Lestrange's voice raised with hers to say, "Yes, sir," before the trio turned back to the weed, glittering blue with the frost.

"I'll come back for it tomorrow or Wednesday. We won't have to wait long."

888

"Leave your samples on my desk! Good weekend, everyone! Severus, Miss Granger, Miss Evans – a moment?"

Lily and Hermione swapped exasperated glances as they stoppered their beakers and _Evanesco_'d their cauldrons. Lily had been delighted to learn the cleaning spell, and Hermione's twinge of guilt for teaching the other witch a spell they hadn't learned until their fourth or fifth year had been mild. One charm would hardly make a difference.

"Ten Galleons says it's another one of those rotten dinners," Hermione muttered out of the side of her mouth as they approached the desk at the front of the dungeon.

"I'm not taking that bet," Lily replied smartly.

"Hermione! We'll be outside!" James bellowed over the din. Both Hermione and Lily turned at the sound of the older girl's name, and as James' eyes settled inevitably on Lily, he flushed bright red and dashed from the room. Lily rolled her eyes, but Hermione's heart squeezed. Lily and Walt had been walking around holding hands all week, causing James to lapse into fits of sulking whenever they walked by, and Ludo had remarked to Sirius and Remus that the locker room had developed a certain…chilliness this past week. Hermione had found herself wishing that she could tell her impulsive and demanding but devoted, funny and ever-hopeful friend that he shouldn't worry – that in the end, it would be _his_ ring on Lily's finger…

_And your bodies in ashes less than two years after that_, she thought bleakly, and batted the thought away before the familiar depression could ambush her.

At Slughorn's desk, Snape stood poker-backed and exuding coldness. Lily ignored him as a matter of course, but Hermione frowned. The truce forged when he had heard her sing had been completely broken, and what truly bothered her was that she didn't know why. She reflected that as an adult the leash on his temper was short, and that she should not be surprised that as a teen it seemed almost nonexistent. But he prickled so easily, like a hedgehog raising its spines, and Hermione did not know how to avoid provoking him.

"I'm having a get-together tomorrow night," Slughorn said jovially. "My office, six-thirty."

Hermione stifled her instinct to groan – she wanted to harvest the flowers tomorrow. Between homework, Lily and the Marauders, she had not found time as quickly as she'd hoped to escape the castle and get the final ingredient for their potion. Remus' eyes sparkled with their secret every time James or Sirius mentioned it, and Peter was close to giving it away. Tomorrow would have been perfect…

"I see that look, missy! It means you're going to beg off for studying. But tomorrow is a Saturday, and I know you don't need to spend the whole night working. I expect the three of you here," her round professor said jovially, cutting off her potential objection with a twinkle in his eye that he probably thought made him charming.

"Yes, sir," the girls said in unison, trying to sound pleased to be invited rather than bored. Severus murmured his acceptance before hurrying back towards his desk. The Gryffindors' glass vials hit the desk with dull_thunks_ at the same time, and they turned together to walk out.

"I noticed Remus wasn't in your pocket today. You did finally talk to him?" Lily asked Hermione as they grabbed their bags from their seats. Neither of them noticed the Slytherin near the door slow as he heard his rival's name, head turning to allow his ears to catch more of the conversation.

"I did. _Before_ the dance. You might have seen it earlier if you hadn't developed a sudden addiction to the Quidditch pitch," Hermione teased.

"It's Ludo's fault for having practice four days a week," Lily said, her blush easy to see in the torch lit dungeon. "But he seems to have taken it well."

"He did," Hermione answered quietly, grateful beyond measure for the younger boy's complete acceptance of her decision. His evident lack of heartbreak had made the transition smoother for the rest of the tight-knit quad, and Sirius and James had given her little grief.

"I'm glad he's more mature than the others." Lily pulled a face as they started for the door. "I wish James would bugger off so easily." Then her features brightened, green eyes almost glowing with their intensity. "Did I tell you? Walt and I are going to have dinner together tonight!"

They walked past Snape – busily digging for something in his bag as an excuse to continue standing there – as they made their way out, Lily filling Hermione's ear with excited details. His face scrupulously turned towards the floor and his things, neither girl could see the peculiar, shielded expression comprised of surprise, relief and hope inscribed on the normally somber face as they exited the room.

888

After their first dinner around Slughorn's own miniature version of a round table, Hermione and Lily had made a point of being early – when they couldn't wiggle out of coming. The late entrance had been a mistake, highlighting their arrival and, consequently, their positions as two of the youngest and the only two Gryffindors to be invited into the club. Hermione felt that inter-House politics had not been a large part of her life at the Hogwarts of her own time, but knew that they were intricately intertwined with it now, and that an important aspect of survival was understanding the rules of the complicated game.

To that end, she had also made a conscious effort always to sit where Lucius Malfoy could be far enough away from her that interaction with him was little, but close enough to observe his reactions to the discussion, fighting her gut instinct to ignore him completely. He had proven himself a threat during her first term, and the old adage, _Keep your friends close and your enemies closer_, had run through her mind on more than one occasion as she watched him play the prince with his Slytherin courtiers and betrothed. Those accustomed to getting what they wanted were all the more dangerous because 'no' was not a word in their experience – unless they were the ones saying it.

Tonight, as planned, they were the first to arrive, and Hermione purposefully picked up her water glass – she and Lily had also made a point of never drinking anything other than clear water – standing near the door with her friend, refusing to sit until Lucius arrived with the Slytherin contingent, at which point the table would fill and Hermione could choose her place.

They did not have long to wait. A few friendly sentences exchanged with their professor saw Lucius sweeping in the door, Walden Macnair and Narcissa Black right behind him, the Zabini twins paired together behind them, and last in the line up came Severus Snape, hands jammed into his pockets, his shoulders hunched in a gesture of defense from the world.

Hermione unobtrusively slid around the table as chair legs scraped across stone, bringing her glass to her mouth to mask the movement of her eyes as she observed. In an offhand motion, Lucius deftly pulled out Narcissa's chair for her, even as Macnair moved one for him. It was a repetition of what they did every meal in Slughorn's office, and it reminded Hermione of nothing so much as a vain, petty lord and his attendants. This sequence did not intrigue her. But as the Zabini twins brushed by him to come around the table, Kassandra's dark eyes locked with Lucius' grey over Narcissa's head for an instant, questioning smiles curving both mouths even as their eyes remained flint-hard.

Klytemnestra, in front of her sister, missed the moment, but the youngest member of the family, entering behind his cousins, did not, and as Kassandra and Lucius broke their brief connection, Hermione and Snape's eyes locked over the table, acknowledgement of what they'd seen solidifying as it was shared. Hermione set down her water, marking her seat, but her hand touched the back of the still unclaimed chair to her right, her brown eyes still on the tall Slytherin, her gesture one of invitation. Hesitation in the black eyes was followed by a flicker of recklessness, a decided acceptance and a touch of hope that flared and dimmed as he hastily throttled the emotion. As Lily sank onto the plush seat to Hermione's left, Snape pulled out the chair on her other side.

"What was that?" she muttered to him, voice covered by the rustling movement of their dinner companions.

"I don't know," he admitted, his mind whirring, engaged in wondering what had transpired recently between the Malfoy Heir and his cousin who had been assiduously, pointedly, avoiding him for the past seven weeks. A slanted glance towards Klytemnestra told him that the elder twin bore just as much malice towards Malfoy that she always had, and the easy way she sat with her sister meant she had no inkling of what had just occurred. "Maybe she's started seeing him again?

From her place down the table, Kassandra's eye was caught by Severus, imbedded in conversation with the Gryffindor witch as if they had not been deliberately not speaking to each other for the past six weeks and frowned, nudging her twin.

As Klytemnestra turned her head, Hermione laughed, and the tiny smile quirking her cousin's mouth gave her a sharp jolt of misgiving, his longing and feelings obvious in his rising color, in his usually guarded eye. Had Kassandra made a mistake in telling Lucius what he had wanted to know?

As she swung her head back to her menu, her gaze snagged on the cold, sea-colored eyes of Slytherin's crown prince and she felt her stomach drop.

The determination glittering there left her with no doubts. Mistake or no, it was too late to change her mind.

888

"Where are you going?" Lily asked as Hermione seized her heavy cloak, black scarf and gloves from their dormitory and started for the door.

"I have an errand to run."

"At ten o'clock on a Saturday night? _Outside_ in the middle of February? Hermione, there's one and a half feet of snow on the ground."

Hermione grimaced, crossed back to her trunk and rooted for the heavy boots she had waterproofed the year before with a spell.

"Is this some crazy plan with the boys?" Hermione schooled herself not to smile. For Lily's tone, though laden with genuine exasperation, was also graced by the slightest touch of affection – a new note, Hermione was sure, since the witch from the future had arrived. Lily was already warming to Remus, and though Hermione was sure it would take time, the older girl no longer thought it quite so impossible as it had seemed that her fiery friend would wed James.

"Yes. In a roundabout way," Hermione replied, quickly lacing up her boots. "I should be back in thirty minutes."

"What _are_ you doing?" Lily asked, unable to contain her curiosity.

Hermione merely flashed her a smile, and vanished out the door, black clothes melding with shadows in the darkened staircase.

888

The forest loomed ahead of her, the sun's white, reflected light from her sister orb striking the frost-covered trees and making them glow with a luminescence that lent the already-eerie grounds a ghost-like cast, as if they would vanish upon closer inspection, a mirage to entrap the unwary.

But as Hermione crunched through the snow, wincing at the noise her feet made while cracking the icy covering, the twisted trunks and jutting branches of pine, birch, ash, rowan, beech and dozens of others only sharpened in her vision, and snatched at her clothing as she crossed the boundary from sparkling lawn into the silent giants.

She had no trouble locating the colony of trees wrapped with frozen elderflower, but as she reached into her pocket for her knife, her fingers found only the smooth wood of her wand, not the cold metal she was seeking.

Uttering a low, clipped cry of frustration, Hermione glared at the vine in front of her. Ice coated it in thick, beautiful patterns, sealing it to the tree and rendering her hands useless. But if she went back inside Hogwarts, she knew she would not want to come back out…

The memory of singing with Snape's clarinet and Klytemnestra's viola popped to the front of her mind, and she vividly recalled Transfiguring Snape's rat. She bit one side of her lower lip speculatively as she gazed at the glittering ice encasing the elderflower. She had no idea how she might sing to melt it, but she had also not known – before she started singing – what sounds would produce a rat from a teacup.

They had been discovered…but then, Mroczek had been here looking for her. There was no one seeking her now, and she could feel her spirit began to soar as her throat prepared to open, the desire to perform for the night as immediate as her thoughts.

Humming a scale to warm cords rough with cold, Hermione let out one quiet, but swooping note, allowing her voice to run from the bottom of her range to the top, and watched in delight as the ice began to drip, and then to run with her voice in rivulets of water over the frozen tree bark.

888

Kassandra's wand told her the girl had left the castle walls, the tip glowing red-hot briefly before fading. She rose from her bed swiftly, jamming her feet into her boots, preparations for sleep abandoned as she saw their opportunity unexpectedly arrive.

It had taken little discussion to reach the conclusion that removing anyone from within the walls of the castle would be difficult to the point of impossibility. So she and Lucius had decided that they would have to find a time that the girl left the castle walls – not a common occurrence in the dead of winter, especially with Hogsmeade just behind them. But luck had provided for them again, and she would not spurn what was likely to be their only chance for some time, in spite of her premature chills as her body anticipated breathing air that was well below zero.

Sending another prayer of thanks to whichever god had decided to help her that Klytemnestra was buried in studying with one of their sixth-year friends and not present to ask her perceptive and awkward questions, Kassandra grabbed her heavy cloak and descended into the Slytherin common room, where she knew she would find the white-blond Slytherin surrounded by his many hangers-on.

888

They could hear the singing well in advance of being able to see her, and Kassandra felt her breath catch, her heart pinching as her soul nearly winged from her body, greedily drinking the sound. Klytemnestra was right. The girl's skill was beyond beautiful, the quality of the notes ringing over the snow, ice and earth seemed to come from the stars rather than a human being, and Kassandra felt tears streaming down her face as she listened to the young woman, feeling spring stir in her voice.

"She's making it easier for us." The gloating, smooth tones of Lucius Malfoy broke the spell that had halted the raven-haired witch in the middle of the grounds, mindless of her total exposure as a black shadow on pure white. She glared at him in the dark, watching his teeth flash brighter than the snow underfoot as he shot her a hard smile.

"True," Kassandra allowed quietly, clearing her throat to force it back to normality, turning her head to wipe her unseen tears from her face with her scarf. She tossed a glance over her shoulder at a wary Walden Macnair. She had not been overly thrilled at Lucius' insistence on his coming, no more had he, since that meant a foray into the winter night, but the arrogant prince got his way. Lucius always got his way.

But now…life danced up her spine as she listened, her ears eagerly straining for every dip, every slide, every note piping from the trees, and the daughter of Anthony Zabini wanted nothing more than to pull out the shrunk instrument in her pocket and meld with that perfect sound, add to it, multiply it until it filled not just the ring of mountains surrounding the castle but the entire world. Granger's voice spoke of beginnings, of snow melt and rivers roaring, of saplings rising and flowers turning out their new leaves. It contained the passion of mating animals, the ferocity of their competition and the calmer, but no less consuming, love of a new-made mother.

Without conscious thought, the case that had fit in her pocket was in the palm of her hand, and she had enlarged it, fingers on the cold metal of the clasp-

"What are you doing?" Lucius hissed, his kid-gloved hand seizing hers and tearing it away from the bronze. "I thought you said we were going into the forest? So as not to be seen?"

For a moment, hatred and fury blazed in her black eyes, the mantle of her aristocracy merging with anger at being denied that which she most desired. Lucius released her, stunned by the intensity of the dark orbs that blistered as they focused on him, stepping back as the force of her rage threatened to wash over him in the form of hexes from her wand.

"Kassandra! I made you a promise," he hissed as the fire began to dim, rationality replacing the compulsion to obey the story told by the voice in the trees. Lucius was flexing the hand he'd sliced open to persuade her. "We're going to do this. Now."

The young woman breathed deeply, focusing all of her thought on letting the freezing air in and out of her lungs, blocking out the sound that beckoned from the trees glittering in the moon light like massive, upside-down icicles. Lucius had sworn. For him, for her sister, for her cousin – for her family – she could not refuse him now, regardless of the lightness she felt as wave after wave of sound rebounded from her eardrums.

"Right," she nodded shortly, and cast a spell on her ears, filling them with a faint, irritating buzzing. It would be too easy to fall prey to that incomparable voice again.

She gestured with one hand for Walden to fan to her right, entering the forest to stand at the due south point. Lucius would stand to the east, and she would be northwest, playing her own, perfectly-made French horn. The boys would be using incantations to bounce Hermione's song back on her, and the added impetus of Kassandra's horn would confine the younger girl's power, rendering her helpless and allowing Lucius to do what he wanted with her.

As she passed the first layer of foliage, Kassandra halted, hidden from the castle windows by the tangle of branches. Her lips tucked into the round piece it fit so well, and she hesitated, shame, guilt and fear ripping through her, stealing her breath. If she did this, she would be in violation of nearly every law – both those made by the Ministry and her family's own stringent code – she could think of. She was using her power and knowledge to hurt another. And not only another, but one of her kind, a fellow musician – someone she should be willing to protect at all costs, not betray…and that voice was something to be valued beyond measure, a priceless pearl…

_She is different_, Kassandra told herself firmly, taking a deep breath as she regained control of her lungs. _She is a threat, regardless of her talent. My father would do the same_.

Refusing to examine that last thought too closely, part of her knowing that introspection would cause it to evaporate, she funneled her exhale into the mouthpiece, its answering vibration rumbling through her in a welcome homecoming. Thought took second place as music soared in her ears, quickening her blood.

With a deep, tolling note, the horn began to sound.


	16. Trap Sprung

Disclaimer: Not mine, all respects paid to their proper owners.

A/N: I owe a huge thank you to my beta Trinka, and to everyone who has been reading and reviewing this story – thank you all for your support! I hope this next chapter does not disappoint!

Trap Sprung

The song had long ceased to be about melting the ice. It had taken a life of its own and vaulted through the frost-rimmed canopy arching over her, leaping into the sky, bouncing off the stone both man - and nature - made to layer over itself again and again. Had Hermione been listening, she would have heard many voices raised with hers in song – the world around her responding to its mistress' joyous sound.

But for her, there was nothing but the music, and the narrow strip of her throat that produced a sound inhuman in its flawless beauty.

Not only the ice trapping the elderflower she needed had faded under the coaxing of her voice. Snow was retreating visibly in a circle from where she knelt, and in its place, new grass sprang to life, the process of many days accomplished in a matter of seconds as white ceded its dominance of the earth to a rich, verdant green and the tiny, purple-and-white spring flowers that blossomed instantly. Saplings began to push through next as the ground went from slush to thick mud to comfortable, springy firmness under her knees in the space of a few minutes.

The music rebounding from the trees was so thick that the horn did not immediately penetrate into her world, its sound one amongst many.

But these notes blared against her current. The brass did not weave the same tapestry as the rest of the night. It was not about growth and newness, but about binding, about entrapment, about a trust betrayed and a waiting hell.

Hermione felt physical illness swell and crash over her – real as any ocean tide – as the French horn went to war with her voice, and she struggled to her feet, bent double with the effort of defending herself from the thrusts interrupting her creation. She threw her hands out to touch the trees on either side of her, begging for their help in the only way she knew how.

_Grow_, her voice ordered. Her alto range reaching for its lowest pitches, shuddering through the massive frames towering over her like guardians, sliding into the trees' roots and waking them from their winter-induced slumber.

_Protect me!_ Her cry of desperation was echoed in the half-scream of her voice, an instrument no longer under her control but battling for her life, acting without her thought or permission as the trees, awakened and fueled by magic, began to spread their limbs. Branches extended around her, meeting and crossing to create a basket-like cage. She was dimly aware of the ice entombing the trees cracking and flying upwards in a whirlwind of unleashed song as other trees began to sprout leaves. Her view of the world outside thinned rapidly as they appeared like so many large, green raindrops, the magic of the natural world defending the too-frail young woman who was its safeguard.

Hermione could see, through the rapidly-closing gaps in her song-made blockade, the gaping-mouthed, completely astonished face of Lucius Malfoy, crowned by the white-blond hair that glowed almost like a halo in the starlight. Instinctively, she felt that he was only the secondary threat, that the wielder of the anti-music stood behind her…and as she whirled on the spot, she found herself staring into the black, shocked and horrified gaze of Kassandra Zabini, ensnared by tree branches some twenty yards distant, the French horn half-sunk in a snow bank, the bronze bell gleaming dully from refracted moon light.

Amazement, hurt and comprehension did not have time to order themselves before exhaustion claimed the Gryffindor, and she collapsed on the thick patch of grass that she had summoned in the middle of winter to be her resting place.

888

Something was wrong. Kassandra felt the music notice her counter playing, and shift immediately, an impossible improvisation funneling the notes into consummate anger, generating protection. The young Slytherin had the distinct feeling that she was trying to remove someone important from the world, and that the world had altered to stand in her way.

Horn still sending daggers of sound into the night, Kassandra began to duck through the trees and bushes towards the source of the now-strident music, sucking air furiously through her nose, supplying oxygen to her horn and her legs at the same time, ignoring her lungs' violent protest at this mistreatment.

As she plunged onwards towards the other witch, the very air grew thicker, impeding her passage, and trees blew in a sudden, stiff wind to grab at her clothing. Narrowly avoiding several, one finally caught her robe and jerked her backwards, momentum yanking the horn from her lips, suddenly causing it to fall silent as it tumbled from her hands to imprint the soft snow.

Peace blazed briefly in the interim, the cacophony of warring vibrations abruptly ceased, and as Kassandra twisted, trying to prize herself from the branches that had tangled around her to prevent her from moving closer, she glimpsed her goal through the gleaming trunks, and stopped.

Foliage bent towards Hermione Granger from all directions, magic-fueled to make an impregnable fortress of wood, leaves and vines. But these were not winter's spare branches enfolding the young witch. They were new, healthy and green, like the birth of spring, and Kassandra felt terror and a sense of betrayal so deep her stomach roiled as if she were falling without end.

The deal she had struck with Lucius was indeed a devil's bargain. Nature had made it clear that Hermione Granger was no mere virtuoso.

She was legend molded in flesh.

888

Ice shattered upward in a whipping maelstrom of silver as the great trees of the Forbidden Forest groaned, shuddered, and fell still, sealing Hermione Granger from sight, sound and spells.

As the girl Lucius had hunted for six months vanished in front of his eyes, the ruthlessness that would become his trademark in wizarding politics seamlessly pushed his secondary plan to the forefront of his brain. He had hoped not to use it. But the magic he and Walden had so carefully practiced using was misfiring off the stout tree limbs hiding the American witch, their considerable power negligible in the face of what she controlled.

He cocked an eyebrow at his best friend. Walden ducked as another blast from his wand ratcheted off bark without so much as singeing it and shot back towards him, and then met his friend's gaze.

"Plan Two?" he mouthed.

Lucius nodded shortly, and jerked his blond head in the direction of the dumbstruck Kassandra, still hung up by the trees. In unison, the boys raised their wands, knowing that they had only seconds while the after-ring of music still quivered in their ears to bind Kassandra's power and salvage Lucius' promise to the Dark Lord.

Smug satisfaction curved Lucius' mouth as Kassandra's neck wrenched her head towards this new threat, a light of unwanted understanding adding to the growing fear in her eyes as the spells struck home, the horn only five feet away from her five feet too far to help, the gnarled branches preventing her from reaching her wand.

"_What?"_ Her face contorted with pain and rage, and, complex magic completed smoothly by the two friends long used to teamwork, Lucius stepped close to her, close enough to warm her cold, sharp cheeks with his breath. Her black eyes held all the panic of a caged doe, and she wrestled fruitlessly with the branches and spells that had immobilized her. "What are you doing?" she whispered, using the only tool left to her: her voice.

"I have a pledge to fulfill. Granger would have been better, but," he smirked broadly, "one of your family will do. And as you made yourself exempt from the blood-oath I swore to the rest of them…" He allowed the statement to twist in the cold air, dangling her failed salvation over her and exulting in her dawning comprehension and fury.

"Now, since the anti-Apparition wards you were so kind as to disrupt in your eagerness to remove Granger will be operational again in a few seconds, shall we?"

Behind him, Walden lifted the abandoned instrument from its place in the snow, shining metal throwing lines of light across the shadow-patched ground.

The sound of Disapparation unsettled the remaining snow from the nearest trees as the three students vanished.

888

The sound first tingled in bones, a low-level vibration just enough to discomfit, and the more than a thousand residents of Hogwarts squirmed slightly in their office chairs, in their common rooms, in the library, snogging in the Astronomy Tower.

But as it spiraled up and out, as the lone voice grew into a symphony, the unsettled feeling moved from bone to blood to skin, and fear rippled through students and staff as they sought the source, a tide of humanity surging to windows, to corridors, to stairwells.

In his office, Dumbledore shot to his feet and strode to his arrow-loop-shaped window, the school's protective magic once more fluctuating painfully, unable to respond to this music that recollected the re-birth of the world…

…and he felt more than he heard the challenger, the sound that buckled the wards, wreaking havoc on the spells that served as guardians and bringing pressure into the old wizard's lungs, lances of fire in his ribs making it difficult to breathe. The brassy notes of a horn blazed in the frozen night, cutting across the beauty seemingly woven by the grounds themselves. This second sound issued commands instead of coaxing – and the resulting clash was hideous to hear, music fighting music under the pale, almost-full moon.

Dumbledore readied to turn away, to hobble down to the grounds and halt this unpredicted, lethally dangerous duel, when he saw the spire of ice shooting like a geyser from the edge of the forest on the far side of the lake, each tiny piece catching starlight as it rose, their slow fall back to earth glittering like a shower of diamonds.

The horn stopped abruptly, mid-note, as if it had been whipped from its player, and the Headmaster of Hogwarts watched wind spring up where the shards of water had descended, dread lodged in his throat. He had insisted on keeping the girl here, certain that her unknown mission required her presence at Hogwarts in the absence of other information.

But this was beyond his reckoning, a magic more powerful than any he had ever felt, a girl with more potential for destruction than anyone he had ever heard of.

As he stood staring, unable to tear himself away from the lattice even as his breath began to send streaks of fog up the glass and obscure his view, Albus Dumbledore prayed that he had not made a fatal mistake.

888

Spring's passion and vitality surged through her, the sound almost painful in its intensity, even as Klytemnestra's fingers curled into their string positions, and her right hand longed for nothing more than the feeling of her polished bow.

But whispers had turned to murmurs, trickled to conversation, deluged into cries of fear as students flooded upwards from Slytherin's common room, taking her with them, the disturbance rattling not just in their ears but thrumming in their veins and shivering in their marrow. Remembrances of the attack on Diagon Alley came from so many lips it sounded as if the castle itself was issuing warning.

Klytemnestra Zabini was deaf to all of it as she surged with the tide of black-and-pajama-clad students, frantically scanning the sea of teenagers for two faces in the many suddenly packing Hogwarts' ground-level corridors.

"Granger."

Her cousin was at her side, making her jump with the name that announced his arrival. "What-"

She stopped as the music radically altered, the sound of a French horn cutting across the notes of creation, throwing the sky and the grounds beneath them into conflict.

She would know the sound of that brass anywhere. Her sister's name left her tongue in a whisper hoarse with disappointment and fear. "Kassandra."

_And Lucius Malfoy is not here, either_, Severus realized, the blond head that was so easily seen distinctly missing from the crush of people. And he recalled the strange look that had passed between his temperamental cousin and the spoiled aristocrat earlier that evening, and the fact that Granger had noticed it too…and both Kassandra and Granger were on the grounds right now – there were no two other people who could produce these chords of terrifying clarity and ruthless beauty…

His legs were eating the ground before his brain had completed its thought, and he was dimly aware of Klytemnestra in his wake, parting students before them with nothing more than the purpose in their strides.

Desperately wishing for his clarinet to weigh in and soothe the building fury, Severus reached the entryway and made for the side door, Klytemnestra now ahead of him, her shorter legs breaking into a stumbling run as the cold air struck their faces and their feet hit the snow.

888

Lily's breath stopped as she watched the spire of ice reach its peak, catch the moonlight like so many knives, and whistle back towards the earth. She stood frozen, tears running down her face, hands clutching the flute she had yanked from beneath her bed in an automatic, instinctive need to join the world in its celebration. The resounding joy that she had first heard resonated at the core of her being, transcending words and thought and even feeling as she sought to lose herself in a sound that promised a world reborn.

But those vibrations had been clipped short by a harsh _blatting_ that had caused the red-head to physically recoil, her left hand rising to vaguely ward away the blow. Her insides felt squeezed, as if a large hand had come along and wrapped around her ribs, bent on slowly breaking them.

_Hermione_, she remembered abruptly, and a new horror bubbled up. Hermione was out there, fulfilling some mysterious task, unprotected by stone and glass, under the stars that flared too brightly, as if Heaven itself were part of the unexpected battle.

Shrinking her flute, knowing she needed the length of silver more than she had ever required her wand, Lily seized her cloak and tore for the door, black streaming behind her like a banner as she tumbled down the stairs, praying she was not too late to save her best friend.

888

"You have talent, Daughter of Creation. But if you would rule, you require much in the way of training."

The voice recalling Hermione to consciousness was gravelly and rough in a way that no human being could ever sound. Its sandpaper quality told of the struggle of new roots pushing through topsoil to reach for the life-giving light of the sun, of the creaking and snapping of branches under winter's weight, of the warmth and stickiness of sap running in March and the blossoming wetness of summer. It was not a voice that had ever fallen on her mortal ears, and yet one she felt she had always known as memories of a childhood spent scrambling up great trees and swinging down – her graceful descent the result of a power she did not understand – shafted through her mind.

But though something in the ancient tone warmed her instinctively, her mind retreated from the words it had spoken, and opened her eyes to study their deliverer.

Her first, dizzying, thought as she sat up and pressed her hands to her temples in an effort to get her head to stop spinning with its sudden change of position, was that she had imagined it. Her barrier of many shades of green and brown seemed empty of other sentient life as her gaze swept over the small enclosure. But as she listened, she heard the rasping of breath from near one of the oak trees she had touched in seeking protection and strained her eyesight.

"_Lumos_," Hermione whispered, lifting her wand. Her eyes relaxed in relief at the flare of illumination, and as the light filled the tiny dome, distinguishing her visitor from the interlaced greenery, the young witch stared.

Her speaker was almost exactly her height, and made entirely of oak. The bottom half looked as though someone had hewn half a goat from once-massive tree, for the finely-carved muscles, cloven feet and twitching tail belonged to the four-legged mountain climber. But the top half belonged to an older man, sunken abdominal muscles clearly etched in the wand light, leading to strong, if narrow, shoulders, a tree-bark beard neither as long as Dumbledore's nor as short as Muggle men kept them curling to end in the middle of his chest. Flecks of bark creased worn facial features, and sap coated his tail and had crusted over his hooves. He looked ancient beyond measure, and Hermione knew, even as she thought it, that it was so. This creature standing in front of her was as old as the tree he resembled, had weathered as many seasons as the forest surrounding them, and as Hermione searched the face for some signal of friend or foe, she had the sense that the headmaster himself would feel like a babe in arms if presented with this visage.

His eyes alone looked human, as they were not made of wood but large and liquid, earth-colored orbs shot through with jade, and currently slotted – whether in displeasure or against the sudden light, Hermione could not tell.

"A faun?" the young woman whispered, staring at this evidence of one more fairytale of her childhood brought to life.

His beard twitched, and Hermione was relieved to see a glint of approval in the widening eyes. "We are a race so long ago consigned to silent observation in the world of magic that I will confess that I had not expected you to recognize me. I am one of Pan's folk," he confirmed with a nod. "A faun. Though that is merely my shape. I am a dryad, the Spirit of the Oak you used." Wind rustled the trees above them, cold and piercing, reminding Hermione that outside of her grove, winter still reigned. The wooden head tilted, one pointed ear listening carefully. When he turned back to her, respect had been added to the other things in his face. "The trees say that the school no longer teaches such things – are they mistaken?"

"No," Hermione answered, dimly impressed by her ability not to stammer while trying to process too much. "I learned when I was younger, from…" here she hesitated. Fiction and fairytales were the truth, but somehow it seemed highly impolite to say so, "…books of gods and legends," she finished. This was also true – although it was genially understood in the Muggle world that gods, legends, and fiction were synonymous.

But the spirit seemed to understand her meaning perfectly, for he nodded sharply. "Surrendering the power of Creation to humans meant that we would one day be relegated to the world of the fairie and mist. We knew that would be the price we paid when we agreed to it. Do not be ashamed of how you know, child."

…_power of Creation. Daughter of Creation…_ "I do not seek to rule," Hermione told the creature softly.

"You were _born_ to rule, Daughter of Creation," the dryad corrected her quietly. "Seek it or not, it is what you must do. That I am standing here before you is proof of your power, for you summoned Life to do your bidding, turned nature to your needs. You were born a witch – the first since we allowed Merlin to harness the power to human form – for a purpose." He cocked his head again and added, "However, it is better to ask than to demand, young one. You will find that you get better results."

A desperate sense of entrapment closed around Hermione with the words this creature uttered, certainty permeating them with all the unstoppable force of a tolling bell. With a sudden flash of insight, she _knew_ what Harry had felt when he had heard the prophecy tying him to the death of Voldemort, naming him either the destroyer or the destroyed. The life she planned, the one she wanted, seemed to have slid through her grasp more quickly than she could blink, slipped away while she was looking the other direction. "_...seek the Echo..._" Her professors had sent her here to learn this…to tame this power, to mold her into another instrument, just as Harry was being honed to kill. "_We are sending you…elsewhere, to learn something vital to the war._"

Resentment flared, strong and furious, only to be met by her ferocious sense of duty. She had committed her life to the defeat of Voldemort when she had fallen into a Devil's Snare at the end of her first year. She could only imagine her regret if Dumbledore had not sent her and she had later learned that her immense natural talent could be used to win the war…

And with the same resolve that had stiffened her spine at twelve to follow Harry Potter through a trapdoor guarded by a three-headed monster and face a variety of traps and dangers, Hermione turned back to this new tutor, ready to learn whatever he might teach her. "…_if you would rule…"_ The young woman had no interest in being a ruler of the masses, but if she could master her own magic, she might save her world.

Mroczek had explained the Echo of Creation to her, but now there was no way of trusting what he had said, and even with his explanation, there was too much that she had yet to understand about her purpose. The young woman's mouth twitched in a bitter smile as she reflected on Mroczek's words to her. "_You intend to use this knowledge as a weapon, child? Do you have any idea what you could do with your power? Your voice is not a plaything to be used at whim!"_ It was not a plaything, and the problem was that she didn't know what she could do with it, but from the attack on Diagon Alley and her own fresh experience, it was clear that the sheer amount of power carried by music could be a large factor in any battle. She intended to defeat Voldemort in any way she could, and she had discovered in the Department of Mysteries that the weapon she carried and did not know how to use belonged to her enemy.

"Will you teach me, sir?" she asked, adding the honorific hesitantly. There was no doubt he deserved her veneration, but what was the proper address for a tree spirit?

The dry, rumbling laughed that shook his beard told her that he had seen the many emotions and thoughts crossing her features, and that he approved of her careful thought and her courage. "That is why I am here. You summoned me through your need, and the world has offered me that others might hear, understand and follow you. Though you are mistress of this magic by right of birth, there will be trials you must bear, rituals you must follow, to gain acknowledgement of your mastery from the old races. And only when you have managed to inspire their respect will you be capable of challenging the Other."

"Voldemort." It was not a question, and the dryad gave her a cold look.

"His is a name we do not speak. He has no respect for the world from which he sprang, the earth that birthed the magic he twists to his own ends. He demands, Daughter of Creation, but he does so with much strength, and many cannot stand before his onslaught. Be wary of him – he lacks your innate ability, but has long since made up for it by study and the capture of those who have a shadow of what you possess. His strength is growing, his knowledge formidable. You will have to learn quickly if you wish to gain enough power to conquer him."

He paused, and Hermione, ready to ask another question, instead stilled her tongue and observed him as he swung his head slowly, listening. She was amazed at how easy the motion looked for a faun made entirely of wood, how naturally he moved in spite of the brittleness of the material he was made from. His eyes were smiling when they alighted on her again.

"You will require help, Daughter of Creation, and it has arrived." Hermione frowned for an instant at this obscure statement, but then she heard a voice worming through the heavy coat of leaves and moss shielding her from the forest. There was distress and awe in the tone as it cried her name.

"Hermione!"

It was Lily, and filling her other ear was, "Granger!" in two different pitches, one deeper and one higher, genuine worry stamped on both.

"Open your cocoon, young mistress, and let them in," the dryad prompted gently. "They are your orchestra."

Hermione stared in dismay at the tangle of branches that had protected her. She had not thought through the process of undoing what she had done and the woven wood had all the form and pattern of a toddler's attempt at working a loom. "How?" she asked helplessly.

"Undo what you did," the dryad instructed. "But slowly. It is easier to grow than to shrink." Hermione thought about pointing out that one could simply slice through the trees, but felt herself flinch at that option. These trees had fulfilled her desperate orders and probably saved her life – and they were living things. She could not simply take off their limbs at whim.

She opened her throat, and let sound run through it like water, forming notes without words, asking the earth to reclaim that which she had taken from it.

Again, gaining strength and momentum, as if a conductor had lifted his baton, the forest sang with her, and the rocks from the mountains, and the snow underfoot – and another voice, a boy's voice reaching for adulthood, undeveloped but showing great promise in flexibility and tone. It was Snape's voice, and her eyes were shining in wonder as the trees peeled back their leaves and retracted their branches, as the earth turned to mud underneath her and swallowed the grass and the tiny flowers, and then froze over, the white carpet creeping forward once more to overtake her shoes and soak the bottom of her cloak.

As dark tree trunks and the star-studded sky became visible once more, Hermione found herself gazing into the face of Severus Snape, the passionate intensity that had been so remarkable in Dumbledore's office on the face of a man more than twenty years this boy's senior blazing there once more as his black eyes locked on her. The remarkable transfiguration of his features robbed her of breath and for a moment they stood frozen, as if it were just the two of them, clarity of purpose and power throbbing between them almost tangibly.

Lily saw what she had suspected to be true two months ago when Hermione had opened the Christmas present from Snape, and Klytemnestra could see the opposite and equal reaction that the girl had to her young cousin, the rising tide between two people who were not so much human beings as forces of nature. For a moment, they both seemed limned by the golden glow emanating from Hermione's wand…

…and then it had passed and four teenaged voices chimed together:

"What are _you_ doing here?"

888

Kassandra's first impressions while struggling back to consciousness was that she was freezing cold, and that the surface she was lying on was far from the comfortable bed where she usually greeted the waking world.

Her third realization, as discomfort put the finishing touches on rousing her and she opened her eyes, was that she was not alone.

The shadows were too dark in one corner of the smoky, clouded room where she lay – still bound, and as she struggled into sitting position, part of the shade stretched and detached itself, dropping the dark hood as it glided towards her.

The girl raised in glittering aristocratic society recoiled sharply. The face was far too pale, the nose slotted as no human feature should be, the brown eyes narrowed and diamond-hard as he studied her.

Breathing slowly to even her heartbeat as he advanced on her, Kassandra gathered together the dignity granted by many years of training as a daughter of Anthony Zabini and Elizabeth Prince, and when he halted no more than three feet away, she said in a cold voice, "Lord Voldemort, I presume?" She had never met the self-proclaimed Dark Wizard, but his tread, his fearless ease in dominating the room, the movements that betrayed how accustomed he was to command, made it clear who he was.

He stared at her sharply with this disdainful pronouncement of his name, and Kassandra was uncertain whether he would brush it aside or torture her on the spot. To her complete surprise, he burst into laughter. The sound that bounced back from the stones was surprisingly warm for such a face – a genuinely human sound uttered from features composed of all hard angles and slashing lines.

"Lucius is correct. There is much spirit in you, Kassandra Zabini."

Ignoring the blinding flash of rage that seared her at the sound of Malfoy's name dropped so casually from the reptilian mouth, Kassandra curled her lip. "Abduction and holding someone against their will is a crime punishable by imprisonment in Azkaban," she returned, voice flat in the face of his merriment.

"Only for those fools careless enough to get caught," he replied, and though he did not laugh again, the amusement in his dark eyes grew more pronounced.

Kassandra's eyes narrowed. Her father was owed money and favors by more than half of the senior staff of the Ministry and the Wizengamot. Voldemort might be a very clever and powerful wizard, but when her father heard she was missing – especially since she had already told him about the connection between the Malfoy Heir and the stolen instruments, the lord could not hope to hide her in the face of all the resources her family had at its disposal.

"Ah, but you see, your father will not be demanding such things. Or rather, he will tie them up in going the wrong direction – expending Ministry energy and Galleons and ensuring my safety at the same time. Your presence here is my – shall we say insurance? – for the meeting that I will have with your father." The lord smirked, a doubly unattractive expression on his face, at her look of betrayed surprise at the easy way he read her mind. The smile deepened as dismay replaced shock in her black eyes, and Kassandra felt suddenly cold, as if ice had been blown through her mouth and nose to freeze her spine. The cold came from knowing that she was looking into the face of a man without mercy or conscience. Voldemort enjoyed discomfort and pain in all its forms – mild and severe, physical and mental.

In an exaggerated gesture, the Dark Lord dragged an old pocket watch of battered but gleaming silver, from his robes. Kassandra's mouth twisted slightly with disapproval, in spite of her sudden terror, as the guttering torch light caught the engraving of snakes twining over it. Slytherin colors were all very well – green and silver was an excellent combination for displaying wealth and power. But the obsession with snakes was a trifle childish and melodramatic.

"Not when you can speak to them," the tall wizard in front of her said quietly, and there was no amusement in his face as he looked at her now. "I have nothing but admiration for you, Miss Zabini. I would urge you to remember that – you have a talent that I need, your bloodlines are flawless and your intelligence obvious from your high marks at Hogwarts. Your father has stood against me, but I would hope that all of his children are not so blind as he. In this world, your talent in shackled as a crime. I wish to loose it, to allow you to study what you want, to give you a free reign. What is that you find objectionable about that?"

This declaration and question rolled together was met with a stony silence, Kassandra frantically focusing on what little she had learned of Occlumency from passing references and reading. Voldemort studied her for a moment longer, then strode to the door when she did not speak. "I will meet your father in half an hour, and you will be summoned then. You will not be there to speak or see, but merely to be seen. And I would also ask you to bear in mind, Miss Zabini, in case you are one for rash stunts, that no one will be coming for you. I am not a careless man nor a foolish one. I have been working for three decades to learn what I need to know to conquer the world, and I have taken great pains to harness your family. There will be no rescue party for you, either now or in the future."

He waited until he saw the impact of his words on her fine features, then tilted his head in the model of pure-blood courtesy and let himself out of her dungeon, wards of magic and the distinct sound of an iron key grating in the lock to replace his disturbing presence.

Kassandra let her head fall back against the rough-hewn stone and allowed tears to flow unchecked down her face. The only one who had any clues as to her whereabouts was Hermione Granger, and the raven-haired witch had seen the expression of shocked hurt on the girl's face before the trees had hidden her from view.

The Echo of Creation. She had learned the truth of the power of music at her father's knee, and also of the legendary Node, a unique rank in the world, a title consigned to a Muggle who would never understand their virtuosic talent and never be capable of ruling. Could the slender third-year from across the Atlantic really be one? The world of nature seemed to think so. And, if half the legends were true, a magical Node _could_ effect a rescue – their command of magic capable of slicing though any and all magic set by a mortal creature.

But the Slytherin had sold out the Gryffindor who was rapidly beginning to look like her only chance at salvation, and she could not hide the truth that Voldemort had so baldly stated.

No one would be coming for her.


	17. Allies and Enemies: I

Disclaimer: Not mine, all respects paid.

A/N: Once more, a devout thanks to beta Trinka and my readers and reviewers – it's always a pleasure to get your thoughts! Please enjoy!

Allies and Enemies: I

Anthony Zabini eyed the ruined manor topping the neglected, overgrown hill in front of him and once again cursed the over-confidence that had led to his being here. What had possessed him to Apparate to the Ministry and leave his wand behind this evening? Yes, he had only meant to go find a few papers and return home, but a wizard should always have his wand…

…as the two well-muscled, white-masked and heavily-robed men at his back were pointedly reminding him, the sharp ends of their wands politely lodged between his ribs and digging deeper holes as they voicelessly urged him to start walking again. Zabini debated resisting, knowing his physical condition was well up to the task of sprinting through darkened alleys and streets until he could hide and then Apparate to safety. But an instinct more powerful than intellect drove his feet to obey their commands and start ascending the broken stone steps of a once-fine garden. He was a man who gave a lot of orders, and the gloating, arrogant confidence with which these men – who were, after all, merely lackeys for some greater power – had delivered theirs told him that they had some kind of insurance that made their plan absolutely failsafe.

And the Death Eaters were no strangers to murder, he already knew. So he walked, back straight and head level, weighing the probability that they would not want to risk exposing themselves by killing one of Britain's pre-emminent business wizards against the knowledge that men like Lord Voldemort tended to simply dispose of those who would not obey his commands.

For Zabini had no intention of bowing to the self-proclaimed lord's wishes. He had never met the man himself, only a few of his followers perhaps more than a decade ago, when they had come oozing charm and oiled obeisance to ask for financial support from the owner of a European-wide economic empire. Zabini had turned them away after fifteen minutes of listening to their drivel. Their nonsense and propaganda about purity of blood and race eugenics had earned only his contempt, not the support they needed, and as Nobby had closed the door on their heels, Zabini had never expected to hear from them again. There were always a few wizards who made a fuss about bloodline, chaste magic and the negative influence of Muggle-borns on the wizarding world. They were, in the main, largely ignored and so passed through the world with a great deal of noise and no visible effect.

Except this Lord Voldemort, who had been steadily kidnapping his customers for several years, who seemed to have an eternity of patience and appeared to have amassed a considerable following, no matter what his ideals. There were rumors of giants and werewolves and of wizards and witches flocking to his banner from every inhabited continent. Instead of a blind megalomaniac, Anthony Zabini was preparing to meet a far worse foe – a rational, logical, patient mind utterly convinced of a falsehood so vast it wrapped around madness to come at sanity from the other side.

His thoughts had carried them up the hill, and the house looked even worse on closer inspection as a pair of guards clipped out gruff questions. His captors apparently had the right answers, for after a few monosyllabic replies, the double doors in front of him were pushed open to the sound of much squealing of hinges and he was shoved up a creaking staircase to a long corridor.

At the end of this dank hallway, light shafted across a decaying carpet and mildew-rotted wall from the far room. He obeyed the wood prodding him and started towards it, feeling neither dread nor fear, but a peculiar tightness that he recognized as his body's anticipation of swift action. He would not leave this house in a coffin if he could help it. After all, a wand wasn't a normal wizard's only tool – a fact his colleagues often forgot – and he was far from a normal wizard.

Drawing level with the room, Zabini stopped dead, staring in surprise. In contrast to the unsteady state of the rest of the house – which seemed ready to collapse at the first hint of a stiff breeze – this room was flawlessly decorated, a sense of power and wealth drenching teak and cherry furniture, velvet drapes and satin couches and armchairs. The light in the room came from regularly-spaced, flickering sconces and a huge, marble fireplace currently roaring with orange flame. He estimated it could comfortably seat at least a dozen, with standing room for another twelve to fifteen.

But there was only one man seated there now, facing the fire as Zabini stepped onto the plush green rug, felt the wood withdraw from his back, and heard the door close solidly behind him. At the sound of the _click_ of the latch, the figure rose and Zabini's muscles tensed, ready to fight or fly.

But the man who turned to face him, white-blond hair reflecting the glow of the flame and making it look as if his hair were afire was not the lord that Anthony Zabini had expected, and he froze as his thoughts vanished, eyes seeing the image before his face and wishing they were not. A man he had spent half a year searching for, a man he had trusted and needed as a brother…the man who had betrayed him and everything they had once held dear…

When his voice returned, he exhaled in a hoarse whisper: "Abraxas Malfoy?"

888

The sound of her song had gone straight to his spine, sending chills rippling outward and covering his arms and legs with goosebumps, even under the warm layers of his robes. As nature retracted, reverting to the winter world that had existed before her premature introduction of spring, Snape felt his soul longing to come out of his mouth, and so he had opened his lips to let it.

His voice was an instrument he rarely used, prefering his expertise at clarinet, but lacking the woodwind it would do to raise his long-unused cords to the stars with the rest of the world around them, coaxing forth the mistress of such glorious sound.

And now the quiet murmur of nature swallowing what it had produced was the only noise amongst the iced trees, the four of them breathing clouds over one another as they waited for the others to answer the mutual question: "What are _you_ doing here?"

It was Klytemnestra who broke the silence first, although it was not to answer the query but merely add another after much twisting about in circles and craning her neck. "Where is Kassandra?" Her voice was hard, angry and unyielding as she continued the scan the darkened trees. Both Gryffindor witches glanced towards her in cautious surprise, Lily's green eyes betraying confusion, Hermione's dark brown eyes cool with mistrust.

The young woman from the future wondered at the wisdom of revealing herself in light of Klytemnestra's presence here. She could trust Lily with her life, and the blazing look on Snape's face, reminding her of the professor who had sent her here, had eradicated the six week of his withdrawal as if they had never been, but the Zabini girl… The dryad had seemed so sure when he had announced that her help had arrived…but did he mean Klytemnestra or only Snape and Lily? And would Klytemnestra, soaked to the bone in aristocracy and Slytherin tradition, be an ally, or a hindrance? Kassandra's music and the clarity of its intent had shaken the young woman badly, and she was disinclined to expose herself so completely again, especially to the girl's closest sibling.

"Where is Kassandra?" Klytemnestra repeated urgently, but Hermione thought she could detect a hint of disappointment now underlying the other emotions in the question. Disappointment at Hermione for not replying, the wild-haired witch wondered, or was the mixture of anger and deep disapproval directed elsewhere?

Either way, Klytemnestra Zabini had to be held at arm's length until the Gryffindor knew where she stood. She might be here to finish that which her twin had been interrupted in doing. Hermione spoke steadily, voice cold as the winter air seeping through their cloaks. "I don't know." She pointed to the tangle of trees where she had last seen the younger twin. "She was standing over there and her horn was in the snow – I suppose she dropped it when the branches stopped her from deliberately causing me harm."

Hermione expected the other witch to spark angrily at the accusation, the Italian temper of her father coming to the fore to berate Hermione for the carelessness of her tone, to leap to the defense of the family she held so dearly. And indeed, all of these emotions and more crossed the girl's face, a fractured kaliedoscope of feelings and logic twisting mouth and eyebrows, eyes narrowing. But instead of heat and the commanding dominance that seemed to come so easily to her clan, submission surfaced as the black-crowned head drooped and her shoulders rounded in an almost shameful stance, making the slender girl look younger, smaller and vulnerable.

"I am sorry," Klytemnestra said quietly. It was not a mumbled apology, for all its low volume, and Hermione felt an abrupt wrench in her gut at this unexpected turn of character. The other girl was being sincere. Klytemnestra took a deep breath, and with the exhale, she lifted her head again, turned and started towards the trees to inspect the area where Hermione had last seen her twin.

"Are you all right?" Lily asked Hermione quietly as Klytemnestra was engaged in studying the snow.

"I think so," Hermione said slowly, uncertain what to tell them after the dryad's announcements of rulership and the need to use her talent to battle Voldemort. The tree spirit's appearance and unexpected declarations were almost as traumatic as the events that had summoned this triad into the winter night. "I have no idea where Kassandra Zabini is, though, or why she came out here with Lucius Malfoy."

"_Malfoy_?!" Lily and Snape spat together. Their mutual hatred was evident in the venemous way they pronounced his name, and they eyed each other with some ironic amusement following this disgusted cry.

"Yes, Malfoy. They were…" Hermione hesitated, trying to recall the immediate fear their presence and music had summoned up in her. "They were – it felt like they were trying to…to isolate me. It was almost strangling…" her gloved fingertips touched her throat as she recalled the panicked constriction of her voice. "But I don't know what for, or how they knew I would be here."

"Do you suppose it's about what we saw earlier tonight?" Snape asked quietly.

"You mean at Slughorn's dinner? But they didn't say anything," Hermione replied, frowning.

"Clearly, they didn't have to. Maybe they had it arranged beforehand."

"What happened at dinner?" Lily asked with a frown. She had seen the twins sit down together, flagrantly ignoring the rest of the Slytherin contingent.

Hermione shrugged. "We don't know, really. But in spite of her flagrant show of disdaining Lucius Malfoy's company for the past six weeks, they had some kind of..." she trailed off, unable to find words to express what they had witnessed.

"'Understanding' is, I believe, the polite way of phrasing it," Snape finished dryly.

"What kind of 'understanding'?" Lily pressed.

"One that, theoretically, would have led them to being here tonight," Snape answered.

Silence descended as the three of them digested this, and finally Klytemnestra came tramping back through the powder. Her black eyes locked with Hermione's, and she appeared not at all to like what she had found. Nevertheless, manners took precedence. "Thank you. The imprint of the horn is indeed there, along with three different sets of shoeprints." A beat and then, "Did you see anyone else here with her?"

"Malfoy," Snape told his cousin instantly. They shared a look that surpassed loathing at the mention of the name, Klytemnestra's disappointment and evident betrayal etched on her face.

"Small wonder she has not waited for us to be her welcoming committee," the Slytherin witch muttered, kicking the snow. But when her focus returned to Hermione, her manner had resumed the calm of her upbringing, though the easy arrogance she carried daily remained at bay.

"My sister has violated every commandment our family holds dear, in addition to several Ministry and Wizengamot laws. I recognized what she was playing, and I think I could sense why…" The witch swallowed her pain and released a silent sigh. "Do you know where they might have gone? My father must be told – and she removed from Hogwarts. What she did tonight is fantastically dangerous, as well as significantly lacking in common sense, and an abhorrent breach of protocol, especially in regards to another musician such as yourself." Klytemnestra shook her head, and a look of old bitterness passed over her face. "Lucius Malfoy. I never thought she would be so abysmally foolish. She is a threat now – to herself and others." A pause and then, as Hermione's voice did not fill the gap, Klytemnestra whispered, "Please, Hermione, do you know where I can find her?"

The use of her given name gave the other girl pause. Klytemnestra's pleading tone made her genuine concern for her sister only too plain, but the unyielding hardness to her voice as well as her words told a different story than mere sisterly affection and squabbles. _Family shame_, the Gryffindor realized suddenly. The family defended itself fiercely, but the actions of the daughter would cast a pall over the whole house if it became public knowledge. Hermione hesitated, slowly replaying in memory the events before her collapse, wanting to be as accurate as possible. She had seen Lucius Malfoy, and Kassandra Zabini, and the music had told her that there was a third member of the ambush, but she had not seen anyone else, and her fainting fit had kept her from hearing or seeing any avenue they might have used to escape…

"Might they have simply returned to the castle?" Lily offered. But before anyone could ponder this entirely likely solution, a different voice grated from near the massive oak tree:

"She sought to betray and found herself snared instead." The dryad addressed the group for the first time, moving forward slightly in a rustle of leaves and creaking wooden joints. All four pairs of eyes landed on him squarely, three widening in shock as the tree spirit moved into the moonlight and they could define his shape from the trees, his form oddly out of place, his figure belonging to a world of stories.

"Who are you?" Snape asked, suspicion rife in his voice as his hand went instantly to his wand and he moved forward to place himself between the three girls and this new, unknown and entirely alien-looking creature. Hermione checked his stride with a hand on his upper arm, fingers curling around his heavy cloak.

"It's all right, Snape. He's a friend."

"What makes you so sure?" Severus murmured, keeping one eye on the dryad even as he glanced down at her for confirmation.

But Klytemnestra did not have the patience for her cousin's instinctive paranoia in the face of losing her sister to some unknown force or person. "What do you mean, 'she found herself snared instead'?" she demanded.

"Exactly what I said, Daughter of Men. The girl's horn told of her impure intent, her desire to help two Sons of Men remove the Daughter of Creation by force, using music to turn her gift back on her. They failed, as the weak do when confronted with power that they cannot understand or control. The one who shares your bloodline was removed as her allies betrayed her, and used the binding spells meant for the Daughter of Creation against her instead."

888

"Surprised, 'Tony?" The blond stretched luxuriously as he asked the question, smiling warmly at the dumbstruck man in front of him, grey eyes glittering with humor.

"I knew you had turned your back on me. I had no idea you would go so far as to join this madman."

"Careful what you say about the Dark Lord," Malfoy said quietly, and Zabini could see that the warning was sincere. "He is not overly fond of being criticised." He waved for his one-time friend to seat himself with a friendly gesture.

"I will stand, thank you," Zabini said coldly. Malfoy shrugged and perched on the silver-cloaked arm of his chair.

"And, actually, I hadn't added our numbers to his force until about six weeks ago when he sought me out to present some of his views and request our alliegance. I know you stand against pureblood-only radicalism – what sane wizard doesn't? – but I think you might find the rest of what he has to say about music and the potential it has to serve mankind quite interesting. I did."

"Why in Merlin's name do you think I would have _any _desire to listen to you?" Zabini asked quietly. The question was scathing for its disturbing lack of emotion, terrifying in its flatness, and it was clear from the distant look clouding the canny black eyes that Zabini was no longer seeing the dark wood-paneled walls around him. His memory had pulled the scene of a morning in late August before his vision.

_He had entered the small caverns inhabited by the Keeper Concilium as the rising sun was gilding the late-summer trees in gold, expecting to be greeted by the sound of their morning salutation. Dead silence had fallen on his ears instead, and a hasty search had yielded Janco Mroczek lying on the ground in the barracks, red smeared in long streaks around him as he bled freely from a wound at his temple and another of their order was mending his clearly-broken arm. _

_The grim expressions on their faces had told him that this was no accident, and the few clustered on the far side of the room started for him as he entered, twisted looks that betrayed a hunger for revenge bending their faces out of joint as they reached for their instruments or opened their mouths._

"_It's Anthony," he told them swiftly, his own hand reaching into his pocket for his wand. It would be a woefully inadequate defense against the musicians – most of whom he had trained himself over many years – but it would be better than nothing._

_But to his relief, the instruments lowered, and the violent anger in their eyes had been instantly extinguished, returning to a haggard look comprised of exhuastion and immense personal pain. His insides seemed to fill with iron. These men that he had led for more than two decades had the worn, shell-shocked air of people scrambling to right themselves in a world abruptly turned upside-down. Wishing he wouldn't ask, knowing that he had to, he said gently, "What happened?"_

_When he received no reply, he focused on one of their youngest members standing in front of him and directed the question to him. "John? What happened?" He glanced about, instinctively seeking his second-in-command. "Where's 'Rax?"_

_The name snapped in the room like a whip, and every head jerked to him, loathing formenting in each pair of eyes. It blazed so strongly, Zabini thought he might be ill from the weight of palpable hatred seething against the stone walls. When John answered, his voice was rough with grief and disillusionment._

"_He came here last night and was a different man. He said it was time to stretch our muscles, to stop living underground and acting like the gift we had been born with was a crime for which we had to atone. He – we…" here the younger man faltered, and Zabini heard the dry but steady voice of Mroczek take up the narrative._

"_I argued with him. He wanted us to go out and demonstrate what music and magic could do together, breaking centuries' worth of laws and traditions." Mroczek coughed, spat blood out of his mouth, accepted water from the wizard who had just finished healing his arm, and continued. "He ordered me to join him or get out of his way. I refused." Mroczek glanced around and smiled wryly, wincing as throbbing pain lanced behind his eyes, briefly darkening his vision. "You can see the rest."_

"_Twenty of our order followed him, and they killed a dozen others in their escape," volunteered another voice raggedly._

_Zabini righted a chair that had gotten the worse end of a battle with something and slumped into it, feeling it sag as it took his weight. Running a hand over his face, he looked to Mroczek. The man's eyes were lively, in spite of the alarming amount of crimson – fresh and dried – lodged in the creases of his face. He would survive, and Zabini was surprised at the strength of the feeling of his own gratitude that came with this knowledge. Janco Mroczek was the public face – such as a secret society could have – of the Keeper's Concilium, and had never made any bones about the fact that he thought two members of the wizarding elite had no right to be in charge of the ancient order. Zabini reflected ruefully that this event seemed to have proved his point. He had not been here, and Abraxas…his mild friend had clearly changed, and had now hijacked the Concilium for some purpose of his own._

"_We tried to summon you, but Abraxas knows all the ways to communicate from within, and made sure we couldn't reach you."_

"_I'm sorry." The hoarse whisper had been wholly inadequate to convey the depth of his feeling, but no other words had found their way to his tongue, and the faces around him reflected his angry sorrow, expressions conveying what words could not._

And so the Keeper Concilium, the last remaining Order of Musician-Mages in the entirety of Europe, the order that had looked to him for twenty-three years for guidance and protection, had been sliced from forty-two to ten in the space of a night. They were battered and exhausted, and had no time to indulge in recovery. For Abraxas and the rogue members of the Concilium must be found, their power bound to them and permanently imprisoned, before they could do more harm.

The _Prophet _article in September about the use of music by those who counter-attacked both the Death Eaters and the innocent in Diagon Alley had nearly torn his heart in half. Part of him had cherished the hope that Abraxas would go to St. Mungo's and offer their immense talent for healing, that the wizarding world might, indeed, reconcile itself to the fact that music could be used for great good as well as tremendous evil.

But Abraxas Malfoy, top political figure at the Ministry, flawless moderate and consummate family man, could not expose himself as the right hand man in a music-playing order. And so he had kept his identity anonymous and violence had become his tool for glorying in the power of music.

"'Tony, Lord Voldemort has a ability to offer us freedom," Malfoy was saying, and Zabini wrenched himself back to the dark house and plush room surrounding his physical body by dent of much effort. "Real freedom. The right to play, to learn, to use what we are born with. The ability to grow, to branch out, to help other musicians discover themselves. In the Muggle world, there's a whole _industry _based on music. And I don't mean the strictly-controlled noise that the Ministry censors before putting on WWN. I mean the real thing. Symphonies, 'Tony. Orchestras. Wouldn't you like your daughters, or that young nephew of yours to have the opportunity to enthrall audiences?"

"Leave my family out of this," Zabini ordered. No flicker of emotion touched his black eyes, but the command sent a chill down Malfoy's back. He had known Anthony Zabini since the Sicilian had stepped out of the Immigrants' Apparition Office in the Ministry twenty-five years ago, and had spent hours a day and weeks at a stretch in his company, but the smooth politician had never heard this tone of voice. It was the voice of a rational man suppressing feelings so strong they might find their outlet in locking around someone's neck and slowly, thoroughly, completely dispassionately, throttling them.

"I can't believe you're not even willing to think about it," Malfoy returned irritably, recovering his footing. "It's irrational. What're a few ideals you don't even have to believe in compared to what we can accomplish when Voldemort topples the Ministry? Hell, 'Tony, you can even expand your business – whole markets that have gone unexplored because of their intolerance!"

"I have one fortune. I don't need a second one," Zabini returned icily. "And somehow, all I can see when I listen to you talk about 'freedom' and 'opportunity' is Janco Mroczek – who was supposed to be your friend and brother – lying in the dust pouring blood after you attacked him."

"He was in the way. I gave him a choice," Malfoy flipped a careless hand.

"And Diagon Alley? Was that also _in the way_?"

"We went there to challenge the Death Eater attack," Malfoy snapped angrily, mood changing instantly at the scathing scorn in Zabini's voice. "But, of course, having been cloistered and never allowed to expand our talents in the field of, say, dueling, there were a few civilian casualties. We were proving a point – that music has great power that can be placed at man's disposal."

"I would say you proved it marvelously," Zabini snapped back. "I play music. I _own_ music. I send music to people all over the continent. But when I heard what the rest of the Concilium had to say, Malfoy, I hated myself. And when I read the _Prophet_'s account of the Diagon Alley disaster, I despised the art I had spent a lifetime striving to perfect. I hated the fact that I had encouraged – _driven_ – all my children to play. I hated that I led you all to that massacre. You, single-handedly, have justified _everything_ the Ministry has ever feared about music and magic."

Malfoy's eyes had grown harder as Zabini talked, and as the shorter Italian finished, the tall blond rose, shrugging his shoulders in a gesture of careless resignation and starting to pace. "As you wish. I'm sorry that you're not more amenable to our way of thinking."

"You were delusional to think that I would ever want to see you again anywhere but Azkaban."

Silence descended, and Zabini waited. He had refused. Would he meet the Dark Lord, who would threaten him with death if he would not comply, or would he be released?

The next statement Malfoy threw out as his circuit of the room brought him close to a darkened window was casual, almost as if the last exchange had not taken place. "You were summoned tonight because the Dark Lord requires a conductor for his orchestra."

_Orchestra?_ Zabini knew that some of his panic had translated to his suddenly-rigid stance, for Malfoy saw the abrupt shift in position in the window glass and turned with a smirk.

"Oh, yes. What with the musicians the Dark Lord has been capturing for several years and the added ranks of almost half the Concilium, he has amassed a sizable group of the best musicians the Western World has to offer. But he seeks the best to lead it." The supple voice shifted to friendly, seductive. "You are, undeniably, the best musician in Europe and probably the entire planet. Who should do the job, if not you?"

Zabini knew he was being offered a large slice of power within the organization as well as the chance to do what he had wanted since he was old enough to pronounce the word. But the thought gave him no pleasure as his lips twisted in grim amusement. The best, was it? He doubted it. Mroczek had been sent to investigate Hogwarts during the fall term when a musician or group of musicians were causing the school wards to fail (Zabini had been praying that it was Malfoy and the rogue Concilium – there were few better places to hide than the countryside surrounding the wizarding school). But Mroczek had told him on his return that he had instead encountered a young witch of thirteen who was the source of the problem.

A Gryffindor named Hermione Granger who was also the Node for the age, capable of tapping such incredible musical power that one note could scatter even this orchestra of experts into the wind. The first such witch born since the power had been concentrated in the hands of an individual. Malfoy's bribe suddenly looked distinctly less tempting.

"No."

"The Dark Lord does not like to hear that as an answer," Malfoy snapped. "Please, 'Tony, don't make this harder on yourself than you have to."

Zabini took a deep breath, the understanding that he would not leave the mansion alive sinking through him. He wished briefly that he had gone to bid Elizabeth goodbye tonight. But he would not bend his knee to this racist, violent lord.

"The answer stands."

"Your friend was afraid that would be your unconditional reply," said a cold voice behind him. Zabini startled and jerked around to see the owner. He hadn't even heard the door open.

_This_ was clearly Lord Voldemort. He had black hair, black eyes shot through with occasional, disturbing, flecks of red and wore entirely midnight robes that swept over his feet. These stood in stark contrast to the almost corpse-pale quality of his skin, and Zabini recoiled both from the sight and feeling of malevolence that draped over the lord as thickly as his cloak.

Following the Dark Wizard came a burly man, clutching a bound captive with long, dreadfully familiar, shining – if tousled – black curls. Voldemort's long hand tucked under her chin and wrenched her neck around, and Zabini found the bottom of his world dropping from underneath him as he looked into the tear-stained face of his youngest daughter.

Her desperate, "Father!" was distinctive even against the gag shoved in her mouth.

"Kassandra?" He glared at the most dangerous wizard in all of the Isles, the heat previously submerged in forced calm scorching the barrier of propriety to ash and rushing into his clenched fists, his voice simmering. "How dare you lay hands on one of my daughers? Let her go!"

Voldemort arched one pencil-thin eyebrow. "That is, of course, up to you, Mister Zabini. Will you conduct my orchestra? If you do, she will be safe."

The thin shoulders rose and fell carelessly. "If you don't, she dies."

888

Stillness had followed the dryad's solemn words, but it was broken again when Klytemnestra whispered, "And? Where did they take her? Where did she go? How do we get her back?"

The dryad tilted his head for a moment and listened to wind. "As for where she is, I cannot answer, for my roots know only this forest and these mountains. All I can tell you with certainty that she is not here."

"Voldemort," Hermione said softly. The dryad narrowed his liquid eyes at her, but she ignored his displeasure.

"What? Why?" Lily asked in confusion. "What do you mean, 'Voldemort'?"

"Your twin was taken to Voldemort," Hermione repeated, looking at Klytemnestra. The absolute weight of her certitude sank into the other girl as lead in a lake.

"How do you know?"

"Voldemort has been capturing musicians," Snape answered suddenly, and turned to his cousin in a gesture of abrupt remembrance. "Remember the article in the _Prophet_ about the people that he has kidnapped? You told me they were all musicians. Malfoy obviously knew that Kassandra was one…"

"And we know he has access to instruments because Lily and I saw Lucius Malfoy with one going into Knockturn Alley," Hermione interjected. She frowned at Snape. "Voldemort is kidnapping musicians?"

"Yes," Klytemnestra answered for him.

"I didn't see that in the _Prophet_," Lily countered.

"That's because the fools at the _Prophet_ don't know the thread that connects them all," Klytemnestra replied distractedly, mind whirring ahead. "They just think he's making random intellectuals at the tops of their various fields disappear but…" she exhaled heavily, and wavered suddenly as if she were going to collapse, looking very pale and cold in the starlight. Snape took her elbow, encouraging her indirectly to lean on him, which she gratefully did, his solidity abruptly making him look older in the face of her vulnerability. She looked to Hermione after further musing and said slowly, "But how do you know that Malfoy would take Kassandra to Voldemort?"

_Because I know what I must do and why I was sent here and now to learn it. Because it is my turn to master my power and destroy that which Voldemort seeks to become. Because I know what Malfoy is and what he will become. A ruthless man with a hunger for power that outstrips all of his other ambitions. Because it's almost impossible that he hasn't taken the Mark by now, that his interest in me was purely for the sake of his master, and he has no use for Kassandra except as a stepping stone to his place at Voldemort's side. _"Because he spent all of the first term bothering me. I'm a thirteen-year-old Gryffindor who's all brains and no looks, so clearly, it was about something else – like musical talent. But Malfoy had no way of knowing that I have an inclination for music, which means someone must have told him. Someone who is seeking musicians and has no problem with taking what he wants, and who is willing to patiently acquire them one murdered family at a time over the course of several years. I would say Voldemort fits that bill."

"You seem to have a rather informed opinion of him," Klytemnestra said, and now it was her turn to be suspicious. "He hasn't been a high-profile figure for more than eighteen months."

"Just because it doesn't happen in America doesn't mean we don't read about it. Our foreign correspondence has been full of reports on him for the past two or three years. If those publicized disappearances are all musicians, then the pieces of the puzzle fit," Hermione lied without pausing for breath or thought. It briefly occurred to her to be proud of her improving skills to cover all the knowledge she had that was so out of time, but all she felt was relief that no one questioned this story.

Fortunately, apart from a few muttered wishes that the _Prophet _would report as diligently as their opposite number across the Atlantic, they left off the subject of her convienent knowledge and returned to the greater problem: what were they going to do about it?

"I suppose Magical Law Enforcement is out of the question," Lily mused. All three of them snorted in response – Klytemnestra and Snape with the contempt that all powerful families have for those who keep order and Hermione with a cynicism born of having watched them fail again and again in her own time.

"Are you eager to reserve yourself a room in Azkaban for the rest of your life?" Klytemnestra asked. Lily arched an eyebrow at the older girl, green eyes glittering with irritation. She did not trust or like the pureblood twins, especially as the last month had illuminated their medieval attitudes that were cherished by so many of their class. Her willingness to help the Slytherin find her sister did not extend to tolerating her superiority.

"It was a thought," she returned coldly. Klytemnestra looked as if she would like to respond, but Snape gently squeezed her arm where she still clung to him and she held her silence.

Thought absorbed the cold night for a moment before the quiet chill was broken once more by the rough sound of wood-on-wood that characterized the dryad's speech.

"I submit that what you stand here considering is the wrong question, Daughters and Son. Your talents, the confluence of your lives, the presence of the Daughter of Creation indicates a larger destiny to be yours. Look beyond the petty details to the whole – you are here to rule and to mend, not merely rescue. The world is out of joint, the balance of nature tested by the Other. To contort it further, he has taken one you love and value. But she is not the only one who matters. There are many other lives you might save or destroy." His dark gaze swept over them sternly. "It is for you to restore the scale of Life to even measure."

At the first gravelly word, their attention snapped to him like four fired arrows, and they listened gravely. But the silence that penetrated their bones as his last words faded in the air was loaded with no small measure of confusion, green and black gazes swapping non-physical shrugs as they tried to absorb the cryptic command.

"What does it mean to 'restore the scale of Life to even measure'?" Snape finally asked. "What balance? And how has the balance been upset?"

"The balance is the music of all living things, and as such it encompasses and connects the entire world, Son of Earth. The Daughter of Creation was born to defend this delicate dance – the balance between music, magic and earth. Light and Dark, Night and Day, Summer and Winter, Birth and Death are the symbols on the scale. The Other has distorted it, and will only warp it further in his quest for those things that are denied to men." The liquid eyes focused steadily on Klytemnestra. "Your sister has, in all likelihood, been added to the weapons working in his favor. Removing her from his employ will help you, but it will not solve the problem. His use of music in _every_ realm of life must be halted."

The four stared at him, and it was Snape again who voiced their collective, immediate response. "Surely there is someone better to accomplish this task than four students?"

The dryad tilted his head at them. "Is there? Your world fears music, and has allowed that fear to strangle and cripple it, outlawing the whole in ignorance instead of seeking the knowledge that would lead them to freedom. But I sense no fear in you. Curiosity. Wariness. Caution. All laudable traits when brokering in a power that you do not know. But you are not afraid to learn, to try, or to defy the laws made by men. Only talented musicians who are willing to undertake the journey on the difficult road of true understanding can accomplish what must be done. There is no argument as to your abilities, and combined with your courage, they make you the cure to the world's ailment. Kings and nations will fall before the Other, but if you unlock the secrets of your magic, you will stand victorious before him."

"But still, why us?" Lily asked in a baffled tone. "Why not other musicians?"

"Because no other musicians stand with the Node. She has chosen you – whether on purpose or subconciously – to rise with her as her champions."

"What is a Node?" Snape asked swiftly, seeking the answer at the middle of what seemed a long riddle.

But Klytemnestra, silent through the dryad's calm delivery, had worked out this answer since she had first heard Hermione sing, and seen Mroczek's reaction to her – a moth drawn to the flame that would sear his wings and render him lifeless. She had known Janco Mroczek for all of her life, and there was only one human being who could inspire the awe and fear she had seen in his eyes. The music tonight that had filled her with beauty and dread had confirmed her suspicions, and the tree spirit had just put the finishing touches on her certainty. Her father had told her stories since she had been in her cradle, of ancient orders and musicians, their truth now shrouded by myth. And here she stood in the presence of one whom every witch and wizard for a millinium and a half had been seeking.

"Hermione Granger. You are the Safeguard of the Echo of Creation, aren't you?"

"I am," Hermione confirmed quietly, hoping that these two words would not trigger the secrecy curse that Mroczek had bound her to. But they seemed to be safe, for the moment passed in silence, the only change in the world the complete comprehension lighting Klytemnestra's features.

She looked directly into Hermione's chocolate-colored eyes and understanding passed between the two almost-women on a plane that the Gryffindor had never before experienced. The black eyes were warm with respect and unexpected loyalty, and the quiet, intense words following were almost unnecessary. "Forgive my sister, Hermione. She would never have attempted to challenge you had she known. Service to you runs in our blood, part of our tradition as surely as the instruments we have passed down for centuries. From now until you leave this Earth, you have the fidelity of my family. Our lives are dedicated to your pursuits in every arena, and we live to see you victorious on every battlefield. Everything we have, everything we are, is yours."


	18. Allies and Enemies: II

Disclaimer: Not mine, all respects paid to the rightful owners and thanks for letting me use their universe.

A/N: Thanks a million to my beta, Trinka. This chapter was a complete mess before she got in there and helped me restructure many a fragmented sentence. Enjoy!

Allies and Enemies: II

As the symphony of sound faded into the mountains, Dumbledore tore himself from his narrow window and strode for his door, ignoring the sharp pains as they subsided with every step he took. After the Diagon Alley Massacre, most of the students under his care would be terrified by this new appearance of obviously powerful music, though the first strains had carried all the sweetness of new-growing grass, of blossoming clover, of falling in love.

But the world around them had distorted, yielding to the demands of the girl's power as it had been challenged, and as he stepped out of his office to face the wide, worried eyes of Professors McGonagall and Slughorn as they raced up to him, he knew that the staff and their charges had reacted to the call of the seasons and the song that echoed life.

"Get everyone into the Great Hall," he ordered calmly before the questions formed behind their eyes could come off their tongues. He had learned long ago that along with his many duties as Headmaster came the weighty need to appear confident in every situation, to have an instant solution for even the worst of disasters, and that his employees required this exhausting omnipotence as much or more than the students who gazed at him with awed eyes.

The Heads of Slytherin and Gryffindor did not hesitate to comply, turning to match his swift pace, both of them visibly reassured by the unruffled exterior he projected, his false front becoming real as they reflected it.

Even so, his steps faltered as the triad swept down the main stairwell, and he encountered not the empty cavern he expected, but a mass of people so tightly packed that the Houses were running together in long strings of pyjama-clad and still-robed teenagers. Their teachers were trapped on the fringes of the throng, unable to penetrate the seething group and quell the fear that rolled almost palpably through the air.

As the uncomfortable echo of music was absorbed into the stones, heads began to turn _en masse_, as iron shavings follow a magnet, to where the three professors stood on the stairs. Dumbledore was grateful that Gryffindor and Slytherin had been two canny men with an understanding of the dynamics of power and physical placement, for in spite of the terror that tremored through the students, silence reigned supreme as they waited for the explanation to be rendered by the three that had appeared like royalty on the stairs.

To that end, Dumbledore first bestowed a slight smile, forcing it to sparkle in his eyes. He had learned long ago that a twinkle in his baby-blue gaze could diffuse a variety of situations – whether directed towards first-years or the most aged members of the Wizengamot. It didn't matter that the first syllables off his tongue would be lies. "First of all, a quick word of reassurance: nothing dangerous has happened. Hogwarts, her grounds, and, most importantly, all of you, are still completely safe. Now, quietly, allowing the youngest and smallest to go first, I would like the prefects and the Head Boy and Girl to help organize everyone in the Great Hall, where I will explain. Please divide by Houses so that your Heads can count you and ensure that each and every one of you is here. We will be sleeping in there tonight, so make yourselves comfortable."

The measured, deliberate voice in which he spoke smoothed over the choppy waves of emotion and turmoil raised by the sound, and with efficiency, the prefects and the Head Boy and Girl set about their tasks, helping their teachers, settling comforting arms around eleven-year-olds with tears streaming down their faces, shooing older students inclined to loiter through the great doors. As McGonagall started forward, Dumbledore held her briefly with a hand on her shoulder.

"Hermione Granger will not be here, Minerva."

McGonagall considered her employer and one of her dearest friends of many decades for a long moment and inclined her head in acknowledgement. She was intensely fond of her newest Gryffindor lioness, who was not only fiercely intelligent in her own right, but had encouraged the blossoming Lily Evans' mind as well, creating a formidable academic duo that had Gryffindor leading for the House Cup this year. But this did not blind her to the fact that there was far more to this so-called "American transfer student" than met the eye, and somehow she was unsurprised by the news. If Hermione was part of this disturbance, it explained much about the haywire state of Hogwarts since the autumn.

McGonagall continued down the stairs and Dumbledore watched her assist Frank Longbottom and the other three Gryffindor prefects in guiding the first and second years inside the massive double doors. Even through the whispers and the tears, a subtle sense of calm had soaked into the hall, seeping outward from him to pervade every corner, their certainty in him absolute.

The weight of their trust left the sick weight of terror in his abdomen. For what in the name of Merlin was he going to tell them?

888

His mouth was dry. His brain had stopped. His world was spinning widdershins on its axis. For a wizard who had spent twenty-five years dancing with unsurpassed skill on the quicksand of an extremely dangerous business and even more potent magical power, Anthony Zabini found himself utterly at sea, without a rudder and facing the black clouds of an impending hurricane.

"_If you don't, she dies."_ Voldemort stood at his ease, looking as if he couldn't care less which way Zabini decided, provided that the Sicilian didn't take all night. There was power in that stance, the statement of life and death held so casually that was terrifying. This man _would_ kill his daughter. And he would not lose a moment of sleep for doing so.

Zabini could not tear his eyes from the panicked obsidian of his youngest child, tears pouring from the black to coat the gag across her mouth with stinging salt, glossing her gaze iridescent like ravens' feathers in the fire light. He had no choices. This was the end of the road. The image of Elizabeth's proud, beautiful face, rent with grief as they covered their daughter with earth sent a shiver from the base of his spine to his throat, where it constricted painfully, making breathing impossible. He could not sacrifice his baby girl. As long as she was alive, he might still escape, or Voldemort might die…

"I'll do it," he whispered heavily, and bowed his head, unwilling to see the relief in Kassandra's eyes, knowing that keeping her life intact would cost the wizarding world, and the rest of his family, dearly.

"Excellent." A flick of Voldemort's wand bared Zabini's left arm to the elbow. The tanned man jerked away instinctively, covering the skin immediately. The Dark Lord reached out and deliberately clasped the business wizard's wrist in one pale hand, shoving the heavy, rich sleeve of Zabini's robe away with the other.

"Don't touch me. I have agreed to your demands, but I will not take your filthy scar," he snarled, twisting his wrist violently in an attempt to free himself. Voldemort's fingers tightened, their slenderness belying their strength as Zabini's bones pinched together painfully, the lord's alternately black-and-red gaze boring into the dark.

"I do not have partners whom I cannot communicate with, especially not those who require…persuasion to join us." His eyes and voice went brittle. "If you refuse the Mark, then I will have to consider your offer of cooperation invalid, and your daughter will be given to a friend of mine."

Humiliation and sorrow brought water to Zabini's eyes even as he clenched his jaw, his hand fisting as Voldemort released his arm. But though his nails bit crescent-holes into his palm, he left his arm extended and exposed, compliance engendered by the horror distorting Kassandra's fine features.

His teeth ground as Voldemort's wand tip touched his skin, and the fire of his branding began to burn.

888

"Thank you."

The words left Hermione's tongue without the permission of her brain, and the part of her that always stood by to observe noted that her voice sounded strange, weighted and older, like a lady accepting the courtly vow of a splendid knight. She felt her right hand lift of it's own accord, palm out, and as if she were planting it on a mirror, Klytemnestra's left came to meet it. Cold fingers almost exactly the same length, they met at the fingertips and slid together, pushing slightly, trading heat in a gesture of friendship and acceptance.

The dryad's first words pushed again to the forefront of her brain, tainting the sudden accord and kinship she felt with the Slytherin girl. _"If you would rule..."_ For the first time in their acquaintance, Klytemnestra's black eyes held no calculation, no hidden agenda, no lurking questions. She had freely offered herself and her bloodline, and Hermione _knew_, gazing into the dark eyes, that she would fulfill her word if it meant walking to her death. The aristocratic witch had given Hermione a window to the ease with which the Muggle-born Gryffindor could command legions, and the thought turned her stomach even as it took shape in her mind. She swallowed hard, uncertain how to reciprocate the words of a fidelity so strong it had clearly transcended many generations, passed down with the heirlooms and crossing half the continent so that this sixteen-year-old witch could clearly state them in the middle of a Scottish forest. The intention behind the words was pure, but she could not blindly allow a peer to follow her because of tradition.

"I accept your oath," she continued gently, "But never as a servant." The young witch turned to face the dryad, who had moved to her left. "Our world is no longer one of masters and slaves. I am not a ruler, merely a fighter and, _together_, we can learn. Swear your loyalty not to me or to the magic I have unknowingly housed, but to the goal that we will choose, that you may stand the course even should I fail, your oath to serve humanity as best you can instead of merely one, frail, flesh-and-blood body."

Klytemnestra nodded her earnest approval. "My father once said a good Node would be one who did not spend life in search of a throne."

"Rest assured that a throne is the last thing I want," Hermione replied wryly.

A smile parted Klytemnestra's lips, but it was the dryad who proudly murmured, "Well said, daughters. Well said." His large eyes floated over the two younger students, standing stiff, frozen by their surprise and almost forgotten by both Hermione and Klytemnestra, their questions leashed only by their inability to choose which to launch into first.

"But I think that there are two here who do not have the wealth of information that the two of you possess," he reminded them gently. "The magic that you are both sworn to was lost in memory and swamped in legend long before such knowledge became forbidden. Perhaps now is the time to enlighten those who have not been gifted with extra knowledge?"

Hermione flushed, embarrassed both by her bout of forgetfulness and her inability to remedy either Snape or Lily's ignorance. She was unaccustomed to being forced into silence when she was in possession of knowledge – what use was knowing, when sharing was impossible? But she did not wish to court Mrozcek's wrath either. If he was, indeed, dangerous, there was no telling what kind of spell he had placed on her when she had blindly obeyed the headmaster and given him her wand.

And the dryad's ancient, wizened face had likely witnessed more spectacles, his pointed ears been privy to more secrets, than she could imagine encountering in her life. Her story was full of holes and curiosities yet unexplored. "Please...?" She asked the whole question with the single word and her self-proclaimed mentor smiled faintly, as if he had expected the question, and tilted his wooden head, casting the shadows of twigs and tree branches that formed what would – on a human being – be called hair.

"My pleasure, Daughter."

A beat of silence as the four humans wondered whether they should tuck themselves into the snow-and-front covered roots of trees to listen to a long speech and then they heard the low, thrumming note. It was coming from the faun, throbbing out from his wooden throat, and they felt the ground shudder beneath them, a crackling sound coming from the earth under their feet. Even as they shifted uncomfortably on the suddenly-unsteady land, Hermione and Klytemnestra reaching out to balance one another, the snow split and tree roots erupted through the smooth white, shedding frozen water with clumps of cold dirt as they arched skyward, twisted together and layered in criss-cross pattern to make a thick, tangled wicker bench just long enough for all of them in front of their astonished eyes.

When the last root had stopped twitching, the dryad's single note ended, and his bark beard curved, indicating his smile as the four teenagers regarded him with awe and admiration. "You have asked for an explanation of the oldest and most complex magic ever to exist. It is a long story, young ones, and I trust you have no desire to sit in the cold and the wet."

888

"I told you long ago that you should have kept your daughters away from all of this," Abraxas Malfoy said quietly as silence stretched between the two men left behind, the air chilly with all the years standing between them, the gulf of their beliefs yawning wide to change what would have been an easy camaraderie a year ago into a challenge.

Zabini turned a heated glare on the single man who had been left in the same room in the wake of his humiliation. But there was no gloating certainty there, no hint of smugness. Instead, the light-grey eyes and statuesque good-looks were softened by – was that grief?

Malfoy caught his glance, and the disbelief in Zabini's eyes, and the aristocrat laughed without mirth. "In spite of the fact that it was my duty to convince you, it was never my desire nor my doing to see you gracing these halls, my friend. I know you, know that you will hate yourself for the rest of your life, that your self-loathing will increase day by day until it swallows you whole. I have longed for years to move in sunlight with my gifts as a musician, but you have clung to shadows and the secrets of the Concilium – and I would not have deprived you of that comfort, for all I disagree with it. There was a reason I never invited you to join me."

His eyes grew shuttered and sorrowful, and he swallowed slightly. "But I certainly never wanted to see one of your daughters in the careless hands of this band."

Zabini flexed his left arm, relishing the searing pain that shot up his shoulder, blooming in the juncture of his collarbone and neck. Part of him, the part that had clung for months to the idea that Malfoy did not truly betray him, that there was a reason for his unorthodox actions, that all would be explained with time, desperately wanted to turn to the connection burning in the slate-colored depths. Abraxas, too, was a father...but as another jet of agony shot straight up the bones of his arm, it dispelled that illusion, and the black eyes that surveyed his one-time friend were hard with contempt for the other man's hypocrisy.

"Save your sympathizing speeches for those you haven't betrayed," he sneered. "I never expected my daughters to be at risk from the man named their godfather, the man who should be protecting them in my stead, whenever they have need."

Malfoy recoiled from the verbal slap, and something absurdly like pain flared in his eyes, but he nevertheless held Zabini's icy glare. "As a matter of fact, 'Tony, I have nothing to do with either your presence or Kassandra's tonight. I have been a tool today – but I wasn't even told I would be speaking to you until less than an hour before you walked through the door."

"Oh?" The deceptively mild tone did not fool Malfoy. "Pray tell, Malfoy, how it is that my daughter and I were so neatly captured on the same night if you were not an architect of the plan?"

"My son," Malfoy sighed.

This time, when Zabini stared at him, genuine shock had replaced the mixture of disdain, horror and fury that had previously manifested there. "I thought you were always so proud of yourself for keeping Lucius out of your work with the Concilium. You warned me often enough."

"I think you will concede now that I might have had a good point – as their godfather and someone who wished to keep them from danger," Malfoy returned pointedly. "Perhaps if you had kept them ignorant neither you nor Kassandra would be suffering the fate that you are." He pulled his wand from his pocket and shrugged as he twirled it absently between his fingers. "I always did keep Lucius completely free of my dealings with the Concilium. He lacks talent, so why introduce him to a world he would always be consigned to watch instead of join?"

Malfoy shot Zabini a hard look. "He didn't even know of its existence until he heard _your_ daughters talking about it with some Gryffindor Muggle-born at Hogwarts. He has no hint of my being a member, or, in fact, that I even know what a piano is. He is still thoroughly convinced of my status as a moderate, model citizen wearing the honored gold chain granted to every pillar of the community who works nine hours a day and pays their taxes on time."

The blond sighed, and a flicker of ironic pride flashed in his eyes. "Lucius has turned out to be more like me than I supposed. It was his information, brought from eavesdropping on your daughters, that also brought me here – not that he knows it."

Zabini barely heard him. _"...he heard _your _daughters talking about it with some Gryffindor Muggle-born at Hogwarts..._" Were his twins in direct contact with the girl Mroczek had found? If they were, and if Kassandra could betray the Node, then they had already lost...

"He's always been rebellious, but I never thought his eagerness for power would give him the spine to actually join them." As Zabini registered grudging respect in the voice of a man he thought he had known, his black eyes focused on the musing Death Eater, and he knew his voice held a wondering disquiet as he replied:

"Membership in a brotherhood rapidly becoming best known for its creative forms of murder, Muggle torture and kidnapping is not something most fathers would be proud of." As his friend of several decades shrugged, revulsion boiled the Sicilians insides. Where was the laughing gentleman who had stood faithfully by for Sebastian and his twins' baptisms? When had the Abraxas Malfoy only too eager to assist and befriend an intelligent foreigner with a poor grasp of English become this hard man whose lust for control was the light behind his eyes?

"It is the courage I approve of, not the expression of it."

"Even though it has resulted in your wearing this?" Zabini held up his lividly scarlet arm.

"He didn't know when he delivered his report that it was his father who would have to settle the account. I cannot blame him for rendering the best service he can."

"Merlin, Malfoy, listen to yourself!" Zabini snapped. "This isn't a Special Award for Services to the School or the best NEWT scores at Hogwarts since Dumbledore graduated. Your son has put us, and the world, in mortal peril!" The pain from his new Mark fed the guilt already eating him – his carelessness tonight had betrayed his family, as his blindness to Malfoy's hunger for power had ruined the Concilium. The rage torn through his throat as he almost howled, "This isn't some young man's indiscretion to be joked away in ten years. This isn't a _game_!"

Mafloy's face twisted and his voice turned ugly as he drew himself up to his impressive full height and glared down at the darker wizard, centuries of aristocratic carriage coming to bear on this instant. "Welcome to the real world, 'Tony. You're absolutely right – this isn't a game. Apply that formidable brain that has served you so well in business to the truth of the Dark Lord's offer. Freedom, 'Tony. The chance to do whatever we wish. I was not overly keen on joining him at first, either, but since being in his employ I have witnessed the strength of his power, and it's no small thing we can accomplish if we stand alongside him."

Fury faded as earnestness replaced it, and Malfoy reached out a hand to grasp his old friend's shoulder, grey eyes smoldering with genuine hope and excitement. "Nothing worth having comes easy, 'Tony. You know that. The Dark Lord is offering us freedom of a kind we will never have under the idiots who make policy at the Ministry. There will be a few sacrifices made along the way-"

"Who?" Zabini interrupted quietly, feeling defeat sink through him as he stepped away from Malfoy's touch. In the fires of the storm-colored orbs glittered the flames of sincere belief – Abraxas Malfoy had truly become someone else, someone unfamiliar, a stranger in love with a vision that could not come to pass. "_Your_ family? I think not. So who are you to decide when it is not your flesh-and-blood who will fall?"

He shook his head as he continued. "I cannot sacrifice my family. But the cost extracted for their safety will be high, Malfoy. Too high. At the end of this, I will be recorded as a traitor – to my kind and to my art – and history will deserve to label me as it wishes. You have forgotten that freedom often leads to danger. Just because you _can_ do a thing it does not necessarily follow that you _must_ do that thing – a fact that most people tend to push aside as soon as it becomes inconvenient. Magic and music are not meant to be mixed by the majority of the wizarding population – you know as well as I do the history of the wars that ensued using music, and the price paid by many creatures. Sometimes safety and peace are more important than knowledge."

Malfoy sighed heavily, eagerness banked in the face of Zabini's flat refusal. "As you will. I know better than to attempt to change your mind. But it will be easier for you to work for him if you find a silver lining."

"Silver lining? There is no silver lining in this hurricane, Malfoy, no ray of hope, no justification. There is no liberty in a dictatorship, no chance for expanding knowledge. And what do you think he's going to do with all the musicians who could challenge his power once we have won his war for him?"

_And, Merlin willing, we will not win_, he thought bleakly. _I, who should be on my knees in front of the Node will now dedicate my life to destroying her, to see victorious a man who would kill my family without so much as turning a hair. _This _is the imbalance she was born to correct. If I die at her hand it would be justice richly served. _

And as a faint shudder of relief rippled through him at the thought, a chill followed it down his spine immediately. The best he could hope for was death.

The worst was victory.

888

Hermione basked in the warmth coming from both sides, Lily pressed against her left arm and leg, Snape connecting with the right side of her body. The bench was long enough to seat all of them comfortably, but with no extra room, and their shared body heat had become a welcome buffer against the cold air. The dryad had their complete attention as he seemed to scrutinize a part of the forest some distance away before focusing on the students, his gaze passing over each one of them in turn. The acutely fierce intelligence and power in the brown eyes reminded them of Dumbledore as the Spirit of Oak weighed them, seeking a window into each mind's capacity to listen and understand.

At the end of this ritual, having thoroughly scoured each pair of eyes, he began to speak in his slow way.

"In the beginning, Earth was born."

"Rain pounded Terra to create rivers, which roared in turn into boundless seas. Mountains thrust upward as plates collided, ice sheeted whole continents and acres of stone cracked and joined the seabed. And in this beginning, too, came the life that would multiply and diversify many times over, spreading to every surface, permeating both land and sea on the globe." He gazed at their rapt faces, and read the nature of the curiosity there for he shook his head. "I cannot tell you how this was done. All of the old races have their theories, and humans, too, have assembled many explanations for the birth of our world, each as likely as the last. Some of you call it divine, others attribute it to a random occurrence of atoms. Perhaps neither is correct. Perhaps they are one and the same. But regardless of _how_ it happened, the occurrence left behind an imprint in sound, a music that has continued for millions of years to tell the story of growth, of death, of feast and famine, of flood and fertility, of disaster and reparations, of life itself. This music acquired a name much later – scarcely a second ago in history. The wizard Merlin, the last of the humans to be intimately connected to it, termed it "The Echo of Creation", for it wove together the billions of strands that described the world as a living organism, and every creature and mineral – from motes of dust to the tribes of giants – held their place in the scale."

"When the early centaurs hewed crude wooden lyres and flutes from the world around them, the earth's first sentient race touched the power of music and, with much effort, received a glimmer of the riches that mastery of the ancient, unwritten song would bring them. Thousands of years before your ancestors discovered how to create fire, the centaurs began to hone their skills, their instruments and their magic. By the time humanity finally learned to work metal in scorching forges, the centaurs had learned how to pull iron from the ground with nothing more than sound, how to compress trees into diamonds with a few chords, how to alter the migratory habits of the Basilisk with a single note."

"And then they had wars."

The statement came so simply that all four teens had to mentally replay it before it truly made impact, and as Hermione met the dark eyes shot through with green, she _felt_ his trembling roots and, indeed, the tremor running through the forest around them, and knew that the short sentence carried in it lifetimes of destruction and pain.

"What kind?" she asked quietly. Mroczek had told her a little of the conflict, but his focus had been men, not centaurs. She wasn't sure the old race had even been mentioned in his swift, broad painting of the history of her latent power and she felt ashamed. She had been so focused on what her magic could accomplish in the present that she had not questioned any further on the events of the past...leaving her with a lack of knowledge her new guide seemed ready to correct.

"Total," he answered in the same, soft voice. "Millenia before human beings would experience their own horrendous, bloodletting conflicts, the centaurs nearly tore the world apart." Hermione shivered violently. The dryad was neither exaggerating nor using metaphor. The power of the Muggle atom or hydrogen bomb to poison the surface of the planet paled in comparison to music's ability to literally rip away forest and mountains ranges, boil oceans, sear crust, freeze magma and send the barren core spinning from its axis. If she could alter seasons with her untutored efforts, what could a true aficionado accomplish?

Feeling the fear transmitted by the sudden stiffness of her shoulders bordering on theirs, both Lily and Snape glanced at her, and the boy reached for her clenched fingers and settled his own long hand over the tight ball, squeezing gently, the callused tips warming her hand. She tilted him a brief smile, seeing his black eyes soften in the middle before turning their attention back to the tree spirit. He patiently waited for the non-verbal exchanges to cease, catching each pair of eyes again before resuming his tale.

"After a particularly vicious battle which sent half the continent of Africa spinning through the blackness of space in several pieces, the centaur leaders found themselves facing a furious assortment of the other magical species. Men were chief amongst the centaurs' opposition."

A peculiar pride manifested in the dryad's features as he scanned them, the emotion tied tightly with a deep, abiding pain. "In spite of your delicacy, and the relatively late development of humanity as a sentient species, you have proven to be dexterous, devious animals. It was with the invention of wands, funneling your own rather moderate talent at magic through wood and the significantly more powerful magical cores, that you swiftly began to surpass races with many times your strength, size and stamina. The pressure of your ancestors, and their forays into understanding the Echo and music for themselves, forced the centaurs to settle accounts in another way. A coalition was formed between humanity and the centaurs and they created, from the first-ever mixed-species orchestra, an island in the middle of the Mediterranean sea."

"This island was to be sanctuary, school and research facility – and for nearly two millenia, it seemed as if the mastery of music was to be turned to positive ends. In every generation, one witch or wizard was born who was directly linked to the Echo, and who, as a result, possessed an understanding of music that was innate and vastly superior from childhood to that of even the oldest, most dedicated students. This One traditionally directed the efforts of learning as they matured, and every passing decade brought further understanding of earth, the heavens and everything that lies between. Forests stretching over hundreds of miles could be re-grown in a matter of hours following devastating fires, fatal diseases arrested and reversed in a few days, bones mended in a matter of seconds. The hidden mysteries of the universe and the depths of the ocean could be explored, and, hopefully, the event which had brought the Echo into being could be examined and explained."

"But musicians from all races became prized. And with that embellished importance first comes confidence, then arrogance and, finally, especially for the One, self-deification. Scholars of music – now mostly human since the centaurs had begun to wane in numbers and talent following the wars that obliterated whole herds – once again began to concentrate power in their own hands. Eventually, conflict erupted once more and the island of Atlantis was swallowed by the ocean from which it had risen, its secrets now sunk in magic and water, knowledge untraceable even to those who have dedicated lifetimes of searching."

"One from among the island's hundreds of thousands of dwellers survived this calamity. Only one. A young man of tremendous skill who sang himself across the ocean as the spires of the great city crumbled into the sea, water folding around him like a transparent ship, flying with the wind he conjured with his voice. But when he collapsed on the sands of Greece, he went silent. The road from Greece to Britain was long in those days, and though nature could have made his journey speedy and comfortable, he refused to bend them to his will. He walked overland for two years instead, and arrived on the shores of these isles by boat."

"The young wizard's name was Merlin. After the collapse of Atlantis, he used his formidable talent for music just once, at the end of his life. He had seen the appalling damage that could be done to all creatures and countryside by those who wielded even a fraction of the knowledge of the Echo of Creation, and spent the rest of his long life seeking a solution. The one he found was imperfect at best, but it, at least temporarily, sealed the Echo from the world of magic."

"'Sealed?'" Klytemnestra murmured with a frown.

The dryad thought, head tilted to the silent night as he reached for an explanation that they could understand. "There are enchantments that can bind a secret to a single person," he began slowly. "A method for hiding objects or magics of great power or danger-"

"The Fidelius Charm?" Hermione put in quietly. The dryad lifted both slightly-paler strips of bark that passed for heavy eyebrows.

"Perhaps. It is not a name I am familiar with – what is the nature and purpose of this charm?"

"It is used to hide a secret with a living person – often the location of something or someone in danger, or of importance. The charm ties the secret to the soul of the Keeper, so that none but they can ever reveal the location of the hidden item."

The tree spirit nodded thoughtfully, the branches comprising his hair swaying almost hypnotically. "The magic Merlin employed sounds quite similar to this charm, although, it was necessarily more complex. He was hiding something that was not sentient or alive, but something that changed constantly, fluidly. There was no ever-fixed mark for a wizard to be bound to, simply an essence – and one so strong it was everywhere, all the time."

"Because the Keeper of the Echo had to contain a constantly-shifting rainbow of sound, the Node – the Keeper for the Echo – required a method of expression as a way of keeping up with the ever-changing music, a physical outlet for the pent-up magic. Hence, every Node has had unsurpassed musical skill, the notes they have penned were pieces of the Echo. These could be played with impunity, for as long as the charm still resided within the Node, the actual chords of the music had limited power to affect the world."

"Just as the secret protected by the Fidelius Charm can sit in full view and be neither seen nor recognized," Hermione breathed, intrigued. This earned her looks from along the bench and Klytemnestra made a mental note to inquire where this precocious girl had learned of this advanced magic – it was not a standard topic at Hogwarts, and she refused to believe American schooling could be so much more liberal. Especially for a thirteen-year-old.

Their mentor merely nodded in acknowledgement. "Then it is, indeed, a similar magic. But there was a second necessary condition to be met when creating a Keeper. As the safeguard of the most powerful magic in the world, they also had to live in complete ignorance of that power, or Merlin's efforts would be for naught. The Node had to be without a scrap of magical talent. Not just a non-wizard, for the vast majority of creatures have a spark of talent, but completely devoid of the magic that weaves through most of life. Non-magical children born to magical parents are the only humans that fulfill this condition, and Merlin ensured that his son born to the Lady Niniane would be this child. The son's name is lost to time, but he was the first Node, the first safeguard, and the first of the truly brilliant musicians of mankind."

"In effect, the ancient wizard buried the Node in the masses of humanity, making it nigh impossible for those who might seek to loose the Echo once more to find the safeguard. Since it was also vital to ensure that the secret would never again be exposed – this was not information that would grow less dangerous with time, but more, as wizards continued to progress in their power – the binding remained untouched by the death of the Node, passing through the generations in their blood, inherited down from Merlin's own son until thirty years ago."

Here, the tree spirit hesitated and Lily, green eyes wide with curiosity and the insatiable desire to know, leaned forward on their root-made bench, elbows resting on her knees, hands cupping her face for warmth. "What happened thirty years ago?" she breathed.

"Fifteen hundred years of research to undo what Merlin had done reached their culmination. A wizard in Germany found the Node, countered the charm ensuring the succession, and killed the keeper of the Echo. Upon the Node's death, the Echo re-joined the world with all of its potential for destruction and creation, the secret no longer contained, no barriers in place to prevent musicians from manipulating whatever parts of it they could grasp and play."

"Grindelwald," Hermione muttered, sighing as a whole new field of 'unknown' loomed before them. Snape shot her a look comprised of incredulous admiration and questions that told her he wanted to pursue that line of thought, but it was Klytemnestra's voice that filled the clearing.

"People have been terrified of music for much longer than thirty years," the dark girl countered.

"Naturally," the dryad acknowledged. "The Echo of Creation isn't the only powerful form of music, simply far-and-away the _most_ powerful. All music has the potential for potency, something I believe you have discovered. And in spite of your race's many good qualities, you are a superstitious species – so 'potency' became 'danger' then 'death' and is now forbidden."

Hermione almost laughed out loud at this baldly-stated truth. Yes, they were superstitious. One only had to observe Cornelius Fudge and his cronies sitting on the Wizengamot and flooding the halls of the Ministry for a few moments to see that. And some music did have such incredible potential...it was so easy in many ways, so effortless to allow the music simply to have its way, to let it come through her as if she were no more than a hollow reed gushing water from a mighty ocean...

"And now Hermione is this Node?" Lily asked, hesitantly breaking the thoughtful silence. "But she's a witch. How?"

"And why?" Snape followed quietly.

"The Echo is a fundamental part of the world, and nature abhors both a vacuum and an imbalance. By binding the Echo to the non-magical population, Merlin replaced the One – a magical being – with the Node, a distinctly un-magical being. But, the essence of the Echo has always been funneled through a single spirit. Destroying the succession of the Node created a vacuum that nature had to struggle to fulfill. Further, the world was abruptly, roughly, tilted sideways by the sudden exposure to the potent music and those ready to twist it to their own ends. The Echo has always been a delicate matter to study, impossible to subject and demanding as a taskmaster. Fifteen centuries ago, the races of the world were more or less on their way to understanding at least how it worked. But when bound to the non-magic world, the Echo receded into legend, the old races of the world separated and culled from Men, and eventually Men from themselves as the rift between magic and lack thereof grew. There are none of your scholars left who have even the faintest outline of the Echo's true potential, the depth to which it effects the world."

Klytemnestra looked as if she would like to object, but the dryad cut her a swift glance. "Even the men who have spent their lives trying to understand this phenomenon have no more than hearsay and a few dusty tomes to go by. Their knowledge is from books, not from experience, and I think the Daughter of Creation will confirm that experience is the better teacher."

"_Me. Books and cleverness. There are more important things..."_ Hermione distinctly recalled the words she had spoken as a budding little girl, words that had proven truer than she ever would have guessed they could, at an ever-mounting cost. She had spent her life relying on textbooks – and here was a magic without a book, without sheet music, a magic that drummed in her blood and sang in her limbs. "Mrozcek told me very little of what the dryad has," she confirmed to the dark-haired Slytherin. "And he seemed quite...vague...on many of the important details. Such as how to control it, instead of letting it run wild."

"'Nature abhors a vacuum'," Snape was muttering. He ran his right hand through his lengthening hair and offered slowly, "Hermione is the Node – or is she the One, being a witch? – because the world needs a specific instrument for the Echo. You fill that vacuum," he said to her. She nodded.

"I think so."

"But you are _clearly_ not a Muggle. So imbalance-"

"The planet is rife with imbalance now, Son of Earth. Your world was an unready one to receive the re-awakened magic, and it has not righted itself since. You have surmised correctly that nature filled its gap – the Daughter of Creation is the Node, but you will also find that it is not so easy to restore even measure to the scale."

"The interruption of the secret's succession and the resulting return of the Echo back into an unprepared world has resulted in great difficulty and enormous upheaval. Think of the Node as someone holding a stone over water. As long as they hold the stone, the water remains smooth and peaceful. The instant they throw said stone, it disturbs the equilibrium and the surface breaks into patterns of concentric rings. Standing on the shore, you can pick up another stone, with the same potential to affect the water, but you cannot take the first stone back out of the lake and un-make the waves. That the Node for this age is a witch is proof in and of itself of the imbalance rippling through the entirety of the planet. It is not enough to simply wall the music off again, balance must be restored before it can be done. This balance can only be achieved when the Node and her orchestra make an effort to master _both_ themselves and their talents."

He regarded them with much seriousness. "Your intentions and methods are critical to your success. The Other has much skill and knowledge, but no sense of self-mastery, no moderation, no understanding that great power brings with it the necessary humility to render great service. To truly rule the world, one must serve it. And humanity's other magical arts and innate talents have advanced, complimenting the abilities of music, further enhancing the possibilities of an orchestra to reach the dizzying heights of control that the wizard Merlin denied you so long ago. To be successful – both in saving your sister, Daughter of Men and mending the broken scale – your work to perfect your talent must be wedded to your will to perfect your character. Personal ambition can hold no place in the battle. When it does, all is corrupted."

"But if the Echo is directly related to Hermione, why does she need our help?" Lily asked. "What can we possibly give her that she doesn't already have?"

"Solidity. Strength. The number one is unstable," the dryad replied gently. "You have an ancient saying, 'No man is an island,' and throughout time, members of your race have forgotten it to their peril. Human beings are social animals, meant to operate in groups and as pairs. All the sentient races share this attribute. Even the centaurs, isolated for centuries from the rest of the races of the world, mate for life. Two is a stronger number than one, as are three and four. The Node's presence will allow you direct access to the Echo, and in turn, your music will strengthen, guide and protect her. She is, after all, merely human. An extraordinary human, but human, nonetheless. There are many tasks that she cannot do simultaneously – like singing a full chord."

"The three of you have significant power in your own right, when tied through her to the Echo, it will be unfathomable, something the world has not seen since the cliffs of Atlantis plunged into the sea. In order to do what must be done, you will need to work together. You are, after all, battling an orchestra many times your number, comprised of individuals who all have greater expertise. Raw talent and purity of heart are the cards you have been dealt to play, but to develop the first without contaminating the second will be a trial."

The four young people looked at each other then, faces uncertain in the dim light, the heavy weight of obligation and duty settling slowly over their shoulders. No one else to do what they could. The power to save the world...

It occurred to Hermione to wonder bitterly why the world was constantly being hauled back from the brink of destruction by a small, determined group of people. Now, and in her future, she was regarded as important to the war effort and exhaustion swept through her, the cold of the air enhanced as tiredness consumed her being. More than twenty years later, they were fighting the same fight. Intellectually, she knew the world would have a decade-long reprieve between Voldemort's collapse and his first attempt at rejuvenation, but she knew, too, that she would not live that decade, and that her return to her own time would pour right back into the fire. Surely they would be more successful if everyone mobilized instead of leaving it to a few students with grit, a modicum of talent, and no true idea of the dangers they faced...

"_We learned together..."_ Her professor's words echoed in her head, and despite her sudden, new feeling of abrupt aging, Hermione knew what their answer would be. They could no more say no than the world could stop turning.

Next to her, Lily shivered violently, recalling all of them to the winter-frosted night and the cold steadily seeping through their cloaks to settle in their skin and tremble through their veins. Their absorbed thoughts vanished as the tremor shuttered through all of them, and Hermione clenched her jaw to keep from chattering. The witch felt the fingers of her right hand curl instinctively, a little warmer than the rest of her, and felt Snape's rougher palm squeeze back, their heat feeding each other. She offered him a slight smile as she reached for Lily's almost-blue fingers, rubbing them to encourage the blood to flow quickly.

"You are cold." It was not a question, and the dryad's eyes smiled keenly, focusing on the castle hundreds of yards away, windows completely darkened. Even the customary bright lights from Gryffindor Tower had been turned off. "Winter, like the other three seasons, is part of my cycle in life and I cannot feel it as you do. Though what you have heard tonight is necessary, I apologize for detaining you for such a lengthy period of time."

Although three of the four students were marked at the institution for their insatiable thirst for knowledge, none pressed him for more information, the cold and the weight of his words stilling tongues that always had more questions. Instead, they nodded shakily, standing slowly, stretching and hissing faintly as their twists brought previously protected parts of their bodies into contact with the frozen air, their muscles taut from sitting in the same position for so long.

"Are we to return to you?" Klytemnestra asked quietly, and Hermione was surprised to hear the obvious deference in her voice as she inclined her head to the Spirit of Oak.

The dryad's large eyes found Hermione's, and the intensity of hope and desperation that flared to life there washed over her like an ocean surging towards high tide, almost drowning her. That look, bestowed by so venerable and knowledgeable a creature sent a painful jolt traveling through her fingers and toes. It was entirely different than hearing him speak of her potential power – that was an intellectual assertion – but to see that he absolutely believed it frightened her almost to the point of immobility.

As if hearing her sudden roar of emotions, the faun answered, and though his words were directed towards Klytemnestra, his eyes never moved from the pale, fragile young woman who carried with her all the beauty and ugliness of life.

"There is no one else, Daughter of Men. I will be waiting."

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A/N: The "Books and cleverness" line is out of the first film. I cannot recall now, much to my embarrassment, whether it is in the book as well, but at any rate, it comes from canon.


	19. Limits of Power

Disclaimer: Not mine, this is a non-profit tribute to the work of JKR.

A/N: My deepest apologies to those who have been waiting (I hope I still have some readers after such a hiatus!) This story is not, and never will be, abandoned. It can be very difficult to write at times, but it will definitely be getting finished. Thank you all for your patience! As always, thanks go to my beta, Trinka, who has re-worded many an awkward sentence for me as well as regularly tending my muse in her sulks.

Limits of Power

After his quiet declaration, the Spirit of Oak stepped back into deep shadow, allowing himself to be re-absorbed by the wood from which he had sprung, returning the forest to the creatures of the present. As tree-bark eyelids closed over his solitary human feature, Hermione gazed at her unconsciously, but undeniably, well-chosen companions. Their exhales streamed like steam from the Hogwarts Express, crystals mingling, starlight highlighting features both familiar and utterly foreign– the mysticism lent by the night, by the music, by what they had learned and the duty they had been called upon to fulfill casting them in older molds from a time of kings, when wizards with their power had ruled the world. Hermione shivered with an abrupt premonition. They were no longer students but warriors.

"It's freezing out here," Lily declared abruptly, teeth chattering violently. Her words and youthful voice broke the mood and erased the grander vision, returning them to their reality as just four stiff and chilled teenagers standing on grounds that would certainly earn them each detentions for a week if they were caught. Hermione lifted her head to study the darkened castle with some misgiving, trying to remember where all of the entrances into the castle itself would be marked on the Marauder's Map. Entering via the main door or even the smaller one of the caretaker would be exceedingly risky – it was too much to hope that only these select few had heard the melodies that had rebounded from the mountains as if being created by the blanketing sky. Teachers were probably already crawling over the lawns looking for them.

For her. Dumbledore would already know that the music shaking the foundations of stones and trees had stemmed from her command.

"We can use the Slytherin entrance," Severus said quietly, as if following her thoughts, and she glanced at him sharply, faintly unnerved. That her teacher had always seemed aware of their antics was something she had chalked up to his formidable skills of observation and his compulsive relationship as the hated protector of Harry Potter. For this fourteen-year-old to already hint at the trait that had Harry muttering darkly about illegal mind-reading was unsettling, to say the least.

"We'll have to," Klytemnestra agreed with a puff. She and her cousin started off, the Gryffindor girls following them, when Hermione's eye was caught by the frost-glazed purple-ish tones of the elderflower vine that had been her initial reason for this late foray into the night. Her gaze travelled up the vine as it looped around the trunk, climbing in circular patterns as was its nature, where it would tangle with greenery when the tree bloomed again in spring.

Such a very simple task. And yet, coming to perform it had changed the course of her life and her world.

She leaned over and began stripping the flowers, no longer encased in ice, storing them in the leather pouch she had thrust into her pocket for this purpose.

"Hermione, what...?" Hermione could hear Lily's hypothermia-induced exasperation, the tremors of her body coming through her voice. "Of all times to be gathering plants-"

"These are what I came for. You don't think I left our dormitory in the middle of the night, when the temperature is well below freezing just to give Lucius Malfoy a chance to capture me and end up meeting a tree spirit, do you?"

Lily opened her mouth, inclined her head in acknowledgement of the older witch's dry words and shut her lips, moving forward to assist in stripping the vine.

"What do you need these for? We don't use them in Potions. Professor Slughorn said their acid make them a poor base."

"So he did. These are for a bit of extracurricular research," Hermione replied blandly. Lily threw her a sharp look practically wasted in the dark, but the witch from the future could tell her friend was displeased with her secrecy by the tilt to her head and the flip of her red hair.

"The boys." She wasn't asking.

"Perhaps," Hermione conceded quietly, shooting a glance over her shoulder to see the Slytherin duo standing a few feet away, still shrouded by the barren branches of winter and likely frowning at her sudden interest in herb-picking. They had both proven themselves beyond doubt tonight, but she dreaded the confrontations that would occur if Slytherin's dark prince and Gryffindor's golden son ever knew the import they both had in her world.

"Are we going to stand here all night?" Oath of fealty or not, Klytemnestra's voice rang sharply in the cold air as Hermione stuffed the last elderflowers into the small bag, pulling the drawstring tightly.

"Of course not," she replied as she and Lily floundered back to them through the snow, and the four teenagers commenced dodging and weaving through the shadows rampant at the edge of the tree line, keeping themselves off the glittering white expanse of the Hogwarts lawn.

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Hermione entered the Great Hall slowly the following morning, scroll in hand. James and Sirius half rose from their coffee – everything had been declared "normal", by the standards set for such a state at an institution of magic – at seven o'clock, allowing them all to rush to their dormitories, change and hastily perform their hygienic routines while the elves re-set the Hall. But in spite of the reassurances of their teachers, a defined heaviness had settled over the school, the air charged with suspicion born of fear, limbs trapped closer to bodies as if afraid of stirring the dread with flamboyant movement, and the Hall and corridors remaining unnaturally silent for a body of a thousand adolescents.

James blinked as Hermione ignored them and made an arc towards the Slytherin half of the room instead, walking with an understated dignity that somehow fully matched the more formal mood of the castle. He hesitated, his impulse to meet her in the middle of the room and demand where she had been the previous evening arrested as she broke tradition and crossed the invisible line running between the rival tables.

"What the devil-?" Sirius muttered, a frown marring his face as he likewise checked his forward momentum. James shrugged, darting a glance to the doors again as another witch strode through them.

"Evans," he said brightly, flicking his fingers in that direction.

"Following Hermione," Sirius countered as, indeed, the red-head spared no glance for her new boyfriend, her dormmates or breakfast and instantly joined Hermione with-

_"Snivellus_?" The incredulity in Sirius' voice brought Remus Lupin to his feet, joining them in staring to where Hermione was now deftly inserting herself into the Slytherin table, gently pushing aside the fourth year that had been seated next to Snape. Lily flanked his other side, and the parchment Hermione had been clutching was unrolled before them, a terse, whispered conference taking place between the triad and the striking young woman sitting across from them. The rest of the table recoiled from the unlikely quartet, as if associating with Gryffindors was an air-borne disease.

Sirius and James both heard the hiss of Remus' breath as Snape laid his hand over Hermione's forearm, the gesture politely solicitous, but assured enough to know that his touch would not be re-buffed, his half-seen expression betraying anxiety. Their friend smiled at him briefly, shook her head in response to an unheard question and stood, Lily coming with her as they crossed to their own side of the Hall.

"What was so important you had to talk to Snivelly about it before even saying good morning to us?" Sirius snapped snidely as Hermione walked up to them, the handsome Gryffindor doubly irritated – both on Remus' behalf and her clear evasions regarding the sarcastic Slytherin in their previous conversations. _His _kind-hearted friend clearly knew the greasy, awkward boy who's highest aspiration seemed to be creating more curses than the rest of the student body combined, and she had also found some cause to be civil. Even friendly. And the pureblood scorned by both his family and his lifelong peers couldn't reconcile a world where Severus Snape was worthy of Hermione's notice.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Sirius, Dumbledore's asked me to meet with him later today – and he asked me to bring _Severus_ and Lily," Hermione replied in kind. The stress she placed on Hogwarts' least-favorite child's given name was almost a physical slap, and all three boys winced. "It would be stupid to send an owl when he sits right there, so I just told him myself. 'Morning, James. Remus," she smiled at the others. The boys nodded stiffly, the tension in their stances a wordless support of the tallest Marauder and an unspoken indictment of Hermione. She ignored them in favor of seating herself, pretending enthusiasm for the laden breakfast table.

"Why with Sni-Snape?" Remus quickly corrected himself. Hermione had made it clear that she would brook no insults directed towards the sallow Slytherin that had, for some unfathomable reason, acquired her favor.

So much so that he could touch her with ease. Despite his acceptance of her decision regarding their friendship, envy bared its green fangs in the werewolf's gentle heart.

Hermione shrugged as she fabricated, deliberately moving to fill her plate and cup so that she would not have to meet their eyes. "We were all working in the library last night when everything...happened. I'm sure he just wants to fill us in on what he told you."

"Weird," James said thoughtfully, stirring his coffee. "He didn't really say much. Just a warning about not being outside after hours and not to worry too much because the castle's safe."

Sirius shivered, and Hermione watched a look of deep concern cross her friend's usually cheerful, devilish face. When he spoke, she was grateful that the previous night's unusual events seemed to have expelled Severus from his thoughts, though she shifted uncomfortably at the grave fear tinging his tone – a hint of the older man emerging from the carefree boy. "I'd wager there's a lot he wasn't saying, though. We all felt that – it was powerful, James, and no matter what the Headmaster said, I don't think they have it under control. He probably just doesn't want a bunch of kids worrying about it – since we couldn't do anything anyway."

"It was beautiful," Remus said, eyes lighting rapturously. "Did you hear the way it started? I could _smell_ cherry blossoms – just the way it is in the last week of April when they start coming out everywhere."

"That was dandy – until the brass came in," Sirius muttered.

"Shut it!" a fifth year near them snapped irritably, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. "We're not supposed to talk about it."

Hermione sighed and pulled out yet another textbook, knowing her studying would erect a much-needed barrier between herself and her peers. It was obvious from this morning's solemn pall that they needed to find a solution to their practicing and the effect it had on their surroundings very quickly. As she started to read, she noticed that the boys were not engaged in their usual cheerful banter that customarily revolved around two things – Quidditch, and gently teasing Peter about whatever he had forgotten the day before. A swift glance over the top of her book revealed the pudgy boy busily scribbling another two lines on their History of Magic essay, but Remus, Sirius and James were all watching Snape with a single-minded intensity that fomented a pit of unease in her stomach.

Their glances were anything but kind.

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Lily craned her neck, looking for the Slytherin pair as they neared the gargoyle. Hermione merely smiled. "I'm pretty sure they want us to go up without them. We committed a breach today, crossing to their side of the table and forcing them to acknowledge us. It doesn't do to be seen getting _too_ friendly with a pair of Gryffindors."

The younger witch shook her red hair in exasperation as they muttered the password and stepped onto the spiral staircase. "House rivalry is probably the stupidest thing about Hogwarts. I don't know why the Founders were so short-sided as to actually build it into the institution of the school." Lily cocked her head to one side as the stairs moved them upwards. "If they wanted a way to break us up, why not by age? They could have a different dormer for every year. But instead we're all involved in this ridiculous internal war just because some ragged piece of head gear roots around in our minds and declares that we're more suited to this House or that House." Hermione smothered a smile, recognizing another Lily rant in the brewing. She had thought the very same thing several times. The Sorting Hat had given lectures on unity the past two years in her own life – a peculiar turn for the very thing that divided them into warring camps at age eleven.

"Think about Professor McGonagall," Lily was continuing. "She's a brilliant witch, but if you ever watch her argue about Gryffindor's Quidditch prospects with Professor Slughorn, she instantly gets red in the face and is more likely to deduct points from the next Slytherin she can. It's so _senseless_."

"A very astute observation, Miss Evans," Dumbledore's sparkling blue eyes greeted them at the top of the stairs, and Lily's face went scarlet as if being drenched with beetroot juice.

"That is...no disrespect..." the girl fumbled, making an intense study of her shoes, but Hermione could see the Headmaster struggling valiantly not to laugh.

"I'm sure you meant none, and I shall take none," he said gaily, waving them in. "I, too, have wondered why we indulge in such a peculiar tradition, but the House system does have some good benefits as well – older students taking the chance to mentor younger ones, for example. And Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff have very little difficulty co-existing with the other Houses. I am afraid Gryffindor and Slytherin, however...we suffer from some very old prejudices." He steepled his fingers as he sat down behind his desk, gaze more serious now behind the half-moon spectacles. "Prejudices that, unfortunately, get stirred and re-stirred, spitting sparks like a cauldron never allowed to properly settle."

"To that end," he brightened again slightly, "I am delighted to see the two of you working with some Slytherins in a true gesture of inter-House-"

He stopped, for Severus and Klytemnestra had just appeared in the doorway. Hermione was grateful for the interruption. He knew they were working together, and she didn't have to think hard to extrapolate that the seemingly-omniscient wizard therefore also knew what they were working on and with. She swallowed. Dumbledore had saved her from Mrozcek – would he be so sanguine about her latent and largely uncontrolled power now that she had accidentally thrust it through the bones and blood of the castle's thousand-plus inhabitants?

"Come in, come in," Dumbledore gestured. Severus instantly claimed the seat next to Hermione, tossing both girls a quirked smile. Hermione could not help herself as her mouth twitched in response. Coming from the reclusive boy, the unguarded glint in his eye was practically a beaming grin. His black-haired cousin made to sit next to him, frowning as she took in not one, but two, remaining chairs. Her expression of puzzlement was matched by the Headmaster's.

"Forgive me, Miss Zabini, but is your sister indisposed? I thought the note made it clear that she was to attend as well."

"Sir...she..." Klytemnestra cursed herself for her instant collapse of composure in front of the powerful wizard – she had come prepared to address this very issue, after all, they could hardly hide it from him and he could probably help them – took a deep breath to control herself and lifted her chin to look the aging man in the eye. "My sister is no longer at Hogwarts, Professor."

Dumbledore stared at her, unmoving for a moment as fear coagulated in his abdomen. If news of last night's occurrence had already leaked out so swiftly that the Zabinis were removing at least one daughter, damage control would be nearly impossible. "I see. Precisely what does that mean? Your parents have not notified me-"

"My parents will have received my owl just this morning. It was not their decision or doing. Kassandra was taken from the grounds, sir." For all of her years practicing manners under stress, the sixteen-year-old's voice shook as she whispered the last. "By force."

The fear materialized abruptly, taking a far more immediate form. This was an entirely unforeseen conclusion to last night's already cataclysmic events. "By force?" he repeated carefully, as if begging her to reconsider her wording. When her affirmative nod was the only answer, he continued heavily, "This is a serious charge indeed. Please tell me exactly what you witnessed or heard to bring this accusation against a fellow student or staff member."

Hermione took over deftly, allowing her proud ally to regain a dimmed mantle of the regal arrogance that came to her so secondarily. The Gryffindor witch told most of the story, as she had been the only one actually present when Kassandra had vanished. A thunderous look settled over the bushy eyebrows as she painted Lucius Malfoy's role in the abduction.

By the time she had finished, Severus, Lily and Klytemnestra adding their short testimony as to how and where they had found her, the Headmaster's usually cheery eyes held a mix of sorrow and anger so palpable they seemed to surge from him in waves, permeating the office. "You said Voldemort?" Hermione jerked her chin downwards in confirmation, and the blue and brown gazes locked, information bypassing words, her steady gaze telling the older wizard that this was not a statement born of wild hysteria but based on true knowledge. Hermione _knew _what Lucius Malfoy had become, and she had a scar running across her chest to prove it.

"If he is Marking them so young..." The long nostrils flared in a physical outlet of otherwise suppressed emotion and then questioning eyes turned away from their internal focus and back on the youngsters in front of him.

"You have named Kassandra Zabini, now missing, as the primary assailant, playing the French Horn and assisted by Lucius Malfoy. You also...felt...with your music that there was a third person you did not see, am I correct, Miss Granger?"

"Yes, sir," she answered.

The learned wizard rose in a fluid motion that belied the aching of his joints, seizing a pinch of Floo Powder from a silver dish on his desk and tossing it into the fireplace. As the flames roared their neon green, he bent over at the waist in a flexible gesture and his head disappeared, the tail of his beard flickering between the office and the other side. No more than a few seconds later, he was standing back, and the portly form of Horace Slughorn was materializing under the immaculately polished, grey-veined marble mantle.

"Yes, Albus?" Their easy-going Potions professor sounded distinctly disgruntled as he brushed ash from his teaching robes and straightened the forest-green vest straining slightly at the belly. "I really don't appreciate being interrupted while revising my NEWT schedule-" He stopped abruptly as he took in four of his favorites sitting poker-backed and apprehensive in front of the Headmaster's desk. The same quad plus Kassandra Zabini that had been so markedly absent from the Great Hall the night before.

In a moment that Hermione would recall for the rest of her life, one that greatly altered her opinion of rotund wizard, she saw genuine relief spark in his eyes as his eyes met the four of them, tense but unharmed, and his first words blew through his walrus mustache with the swiftness of one who has been holding his breath. "Thank Merlin you're all right." An unexpected surge of compassion and respect filled the Gryffindor witch. Slughorn might like to sculpt the Ministry through his years' worth of cultivation, but it couldn't be denied that he had a genuine fondness – perhaps akin to an uncle's regard – for those he had dubbed his "rising stars".

"Yes, Horace. These _four_ are all right."

Slughorn halted mid-step, hearing the emphasis and following it, his gaze quickly darting over them again. He paled slightly as he noticed the missing daughter of his House. His head snapped to Klytemnestra. "Your sister, Kassandra..."

"Gone," Dumbledore offered softly as he re-seated himself, sky-colored eyes drenched with sadness as well as fatigue.

"Where?" Slughorn's head swiveled like an owl's to the older wizard. Around his private table, backed with rich, heavy, green drapes and impressively silhouetted by the fire, it would have been funny. Here, the daylight refracting harshly from the snow to combine with the sun's pale winter rays streaming through the narrow windows, his obvious desperation could not have made it less amusing.

"We don't know. Miss Granger was just telling me a thoroughly disquieting story. However, I need you for a quick verification, Horace. Was Lucius Malfoy present last night when you counted your Slytherins in the Great Hall?" Slughorn frowned faintly, his mind not following the Headmaster's, and his shrewd eyes adopted the slightly far away look of a man in recollection. To Hermione's total dismay, he began to nod his head, balding pate glaring in the white mid-morning light. "Yes. He was there. I told you last night, Albus, that the only three missing from my number were the Zabini twins and Severus here."

Dumbledore let out a long breath as he turned his concerned eyes back to his students. "So you see, you are going to have difficulty proving your story," he told them seriously. "Horace can testify that at the time we took stock of the situation, Mr. Malfoy was squarely where he belonged. We can no more account for his movements before we all gathered in the Great Hall than we can for anyone else's – Malfoy could claim that he was in the library doing homework, and we would only have your word, Miss Granger, against his." Hermione ground her teeth, and the wise man she had looked up to for years allowed his mouth to curve with a mixture of sorrow and sympathy, his words the echo of those he would say in the hospital wing twenty years from now, when the subject was the innocence of Sirius Black. "I believe you, Hermione, but you will find that not many others will. Lucius Malfoy's father, Abraxas, is extremely well-thought of at the Ministry. He's been out of the country on a special assignment for the Department of Mysteries for the past six months, but there are plenty of his colleagues who will defend his son." His mouth faded back into a grim line, although his gentle compassion grew more pronounced as the spectacles turned towards Klytemnestra.

"I fear that your sister's disappearance is going to create more trouble for the four of you than anyone else."

"Why?" Lily asked.

This time he inhaled deeply, as if bracing them for the words to come. "Because unfortunately, the only people we can show were missing at the time Kassandra Zabini vanished are the four of you."

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"You have it?" The raw excitement vibrating from James Potter wrangled the first genuine grin Hermione had bestowed upon them all day. Her demeanor through all of their classes had been one of tight worry, likely to snap at any sign of interruption since her meeting in Dumbledore's circular office that morning. There had been nothing to say following their professor's grim and accurate pronouncement. If the blond aristocrat had managed to deliver Kassandra to where he had taken her and return in time to gather in the Great Hall with the others, there was no objective proof. And if Voldemort was willing to Mark those still at Hogwarts, simply pulling up Lucius Malfoy's left sleeve and hoping to see the gruesome skull betraying his oath was a laughably naive thought. The newly-forged quartet had left the office in seething silence, each burning with the desire to do something – and all knowing that their hands and wands were tied.

At first eager for details – none of the Marauders had yet made it inside the Head of School's private domain – Sirius' questions had abated with her increasingly heated glares as the sun had set, dinner had come and gone and even homework had been finished.

But all queries had now been abandoned in favor of sifting through the now-pressed and ready-for-use elderflower leaves that she had tumbled out across Sirius' crimson duvet cover, splashes of lavender the boys were collecting cautiously like precious amethyst.

"When did you get it?" Sirius asked, carefully stowing a handful in a special pocket. "And where?"

"In the Forbidden Forest. Yesterday," she answered wryly.

"Yesterday...when did you have – wait! You _weren't _in the library with Snive-" the severity of her glance caused James to grudgingly swallow the taunting nickname and force a resentful, "Snape, then, last night. You were outside!"

"Yes," she admitted, and before indignation could cloud James' face, Hermione hurried to explain. "But I wasn't going to say that aloud in front of the whole hall. All of us were missing, Professor Dumbledore assumed we were all together." Remus and James swapped intensely relieved looks in front of her baffled eyes, but before she could ask, Sirius pressed quietly:

"But then...did you see what caused it?" She had clearly momentarily derailed from the purpose that had been driving him since before Christmas.

"Or who?" Remus put in.

"No," she lied calmly. "I heard it, of course, but we needed the flowers, and," her shiver was unfeigned as she reflected on the potential fall-out of their actions less than twenty-four hours before, "I wasn't going to stay out there with it."

Some of her distress had clearly cracked the facade she had constructed for the day, because she found herself engulfed in a tight hug on both sides, Sirius and Remus wrapping their long arms around her and tangling in her hair so that the mahogany curls obscured her vision and invaded her mouth. "Boys!" she protested, though she could clearly hear the laugh in her voice, "I can't breathe!" With a final squeeze both friends pulled back, Remus shyly clearing the hair from her face with one gentle hand.

Before his tongue could voice what the soft hazel eyes were already asking, Hermione was forging ahead, rising from the bed and forcing a sparkle of adventure to banish her fears. For the moment, she had a potion to brew. A complex potion that made Polyjuice look like child's play, and in spite of the world that had radically shifted between last night and this morning, she was still looking forward to standing over it, watching it bubble, the unique smell of heated metal, magical flame and various ingredients tickling her nose.

"Where are we going to make it?" Peter finally asked the question she had been waiting for.

"I'll show you." Her excitement transmuted from act to reality as they scrambled to their feet, bags bulging with the weight of the books they were using for research, and she gestured to the door with a waggle of her fingers. They would not be brewing in the girl's bathroom where she had worked with Harry and Ron. Cracked mirrors, slippery floors, Moaning Myrtle and the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets were hardly ideal conditions for Potion-making. They had long since discovered a better site. "It's on the seventh floor along a certain stretch of corridor. A little unplottable place called the Room of Requirement..."

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"You said there was a witness present when Kassandra disappeared?" Anthony Zabini asked sharply, drumming his fingers on the small, intricately-carved side table holding his untouched cup of tea that had long ago stopped steaming and was now decidedly lukewarm.

Dumbledore inclined his head to the temperamental Italian wizard, making no attempt to hide his severe grief at having to impart such news. Kassandra had disappeared two nights ago. Her parents had spent the previous day with Magical Law Enforcement, and had now come to Hogwarts to comfort their remaining daughter and hear first-hand the account of events as given by Hermione Granger.

"There was indeed," he said quietly. "A young woman in her third year by the name of Hermione Granger. She is ready to answer your questions if you want me to show her in."

"Please." Elizabeth Zabini's voice was stiff and strained with repressed emotion, and the Headmaster could not help but be impressed by the enormous force of will at the aristocrat's beck and call. Raised in a society of rigidly adhered-to rules and manners, the descendant of the ancient and powerful Prince line loved her children dearly, and only the faint redness rimming her eyelids betrayed her grief in this public setting.

The aged wizard bowed his head and moved to his office door without further words. Though his knowledge was vast and the breadth of his experience with healing wounds of all kinds was unparalleled, there were some pains for which even the best wordsmiths could not craft comfort. Though childless in the traditional sense of the word, the Headmaster had dedicated his life to literally thousands of them, and he felt quite acutely the loss of his student. How much worse it was for her parents.

Knowing that the slender witch from another time had been waiting on the stairs for some minutes, he turned the brass doorknob and pulled back the heavy oak to allow her entrance. Hermione stepped over the threshold for the second time in as many days, giving him a nod of deference before turning her eyes to the parents of the dichotomous Slytherin twins – one had tried to kidnap her, and the other had sworn her undying loyalty. Where would one of Britain's highest-ranking couples fall in the balance?

The Gryffindor's eyes first fell on the wife, and as she met the woman's dark gaze, something of the rather handsome face reminded her of Professor Snape from her original age. Perhaps it was the high cheekbones – or the space-black eyes that had such potential for expression, and were just as plainly strangling those feelings as she stood there.

But the comfortable, queen-like carriage of her tall, well-proportioned frame spoke volumes about Klytemnestra's demeanor, and, without meaning to, Hermione found herself dipping her head in a half-bow, her neck gracefully arching in an acknowledgement of the social order and their respective places within it.

From Mrs. Zabini's striking but remote features, Hermione allowed her amber eyes to travel to the husband – the same height as his wife, deeply tanned and unable to keep completely still, his feet and hands tapping unconsciously, though whether out of discomfort or sheer anxiety, the teen could not tell.

But when she locked eyes with him, curiosity meeting curiosity, the world tilted one-hundred-and-eighty degrees.

The office faded, and, as with Alexander Mrozcek when she had first met him face-to-face in the forest several months ago, music replaced speech, lines of notes flooding her brain and arranging her vocal cords. This man _knew _music, understood its power, respected the magic it drew on. She could hear chords reverberating in her ears as she stared at him, their lives' shared passion bridging the gap between them, filling the void-

-a wrong note sounded through her mental symphony, like velvet rubbed the opposite way, similar to Kassandra's invasive horn two nights prior and wholly unlike the unified, joyous recognition she had subconsciously granted Mrozcek. The knowledge they both possessed betrayed him, and Hermione jerked her gaze away as she began to squirm with the wrongness of the notes. Fear instinctively fixed her eyes steadily on her shoes to prevent a re-connection, and she saw neither the paling of Anthony Zabini's face, or the torturous pain that replaced the momentary ecstasy there.

The Sicilian stared at the wild-haired, brown-and-golden-eyed Gryffindor girl in front of him and swallowed hard. The rush of life still trembled in his limbs, summoned by his many years of learning and practice coming to their pinnacle, meeting the latent power of the Echo's magical safeguard. There could be no doubt that Mrozcek had been absolutely correct. The girl standing in front of him was the Node, the most powerful witch born in a millennium and a half.

And one day he would either kill her, or die himself in the attempt.

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"Lucius Malfoy?" Mrs. Zabini repeated quietly after Hermione had completed her tale. The young witch nodded sharply. She knew little of Lucius' father – although she had gathered from a brief interaction between Draco Malfoy and Professor Slughorn at the beginning of her sixth year that he had been widely regarded as a good man. Nevertheless – this family likely orbited the same stars as the Malfoys, and probably knew them personally. They would take exception to her accusations – already significantly doctored, because they could not reveal what Kassandra's role in the abduction had been without breaking the oath of silence they had sworn to Mrozcek. Hermione knew that Mr. Zabini was already too-well-aware of who she was, but their peculiar moment had apparently gone unnoticed by both her professor and his wife, and she was reluctant to illuminate any further understanding on his part.

"But Anthony – Abraxas...?" Clearly, the dark-haired witch had no need to complete her thought out loud for her husband to fully catch her meaning. But Hermione saw a brief look comprised of disgust, loathing and anger flash through the wizard's bright black eyes before his face smoothed back to his business visage.

"Abraxas has been a close colleague, but we've not seen his son since before the boy started at Hogwarts. And he is-" here there was an infinitesimally small pause, as if Zabini were forcing his next words off his tongue in a civilized tone, "-currently out of the country for the Ministry, often away on business. Who knows what guidance Lucius has had in the past seven years? Many sons do not choose to follow in the paths of their fathers."

_And, unfortunately, some do_, he thought bitterly. But the brand that was still new enough to ache under his long silk sleeve throbbed at the traitorous flicker, and he managed to keep his features impassive.

The tilt to her chin indicated Mrs. Zabini's acceptance of her husband's explanation, and she turned her sorrow-lined but piercing gaze to the Headmaster, effectively dismissing Hermione now that she had filled in the details. "Do you have any authority to act?" she asked, and a coldness previously lacking imbuing her refined voice.

Dumbledore shook his head slowly, making his beard sway. "To my great displeasure, Madam, I do not. There is no tangible evidence supporting Miss Granger's story-"

"-except, of course, that I returned my daughter to school for the second half of her fifth year and she is no longer present," the witch returned.

The gracious older man spread his hands in a gesture of deference. "Madam Zabini, I will not claim to understand the fullness of your distress, but, believe me, I share in its essence. In all my years at Hogwarts, we have never had a student deliberately abducted from these grounds. The wards make it impossible, or so-" he raised a long finger to forestall the inevitable objection, "we thought. To have this happen at all, much less while I am responsible for your daughter's well-being, is a source of the deepest worry and shame. I cannot convey how much I wish to see justice done and truth served, but how? We have no idea where your daughter has been taken and the world is all-too-easy to hide in. The word of an unknown thirteen-year-old against that of a wizard from a well-respected family with eighteen years? She was the _only _witness, Madam, and there are any number of scenarios to be conjured up by a defense lawyer. How do we know that your daughter didn't simply arrange to flee, leaving Miss Granger behind to make her excuses and point the finger of blame?" At the look of outrage painted on the faces of all three members of his audience, the corners of his mustache lifted sadly in a smile that did not reach his eyes. "We all know that version to be false, but the defense could throw it and another dozen like it in our faces, and the Wizengamot truly would not know for all the proof that we cannot produce."

"No authority indeed," Mr. Zabini murmured, aware of the young witch's wary eyes on him. He had no idea what she had felt during their unspoken but revealing encounter, but if her guarded expressions and words were to be trusted, she had in some way divined his purpose – and he did not know whether to feel fear or relief for such knowledge.

They were interrupted as the door thrust inward, all further questions or inner musings cut short as his elder daughter by six minutes pushed open the door and stepped into the office.

"Miss Zabini." The Headmaster's voice managed to carry a trace of rebuke for her unannounced arrival even as the overlying tone was one of sympathy.

"Headmaster," the Slytherin returned the greeting quietly and then turned to her parents, the training of a lifetime keeping her quick steps from turning into an all-out run. But the eagerness with which she reached out to her mother warmed Hermione, even as she felt her chest tighten with longing for her own. Though she had embraced a world that excluded her parents at the beginning of her magical education, her mother would always remain one of her needed anchors outside the war-torn environment, and she treasured the peaceful harbor of her parents' house and affection.

"I don't suppose you have any further information, Kly?" Mr. Zabini asked gently, and as Hermione caught the morphing state of his handsome features, her perception adjusted slightly. The magic she knew next to nothing of had told her he wished her ill – but the burning of a father's love softened his composed face as he took in the sight of his remaining daughter, and the young woman felt her innate sense of justice prick her uncomfortably, unable to consign him purely to the world of those who wished her harm.

"None." The fifth-year's regret was genuine. "I wish I could even add my word to Hermione's-" all three adults took notice of the casually-dropped first name. Dumbledore was delighted that the civility he had noted at the beginning of this term had deepened to friendly interaction, and her parents both lifted eyebrows in surprise. The Gryffindor had never before been mentioned in letters or conversation, yet their child clearly knew her reasonably well. "But I wasn't there."

An awkward pause fell over the office following this demurral – the family unused to experiencing their emotions in front of others, the two Gryffindors wondering whether their presence was still required. When it was clear from the cut of Mr. Zabini's glance that they wished to be alone, the Headmaster of Hogwarts bowed his head. "Miss Granger, if you would be so kind to accompany me, I have a few matters I wish to consult with you about. Mr. and Mrs. Zabini, you are, of course, welcome to stay here for as long as you wish. I will have one of the house-elves attend you and Miss Zabini should you require anything."

Hermione took her cue from the twitch of his hand towards the exit and started down the staircase, hearing the sweep of his heavy velvet robes as they scrapped down the stairs behind her.

When she reached the bottom, she automatically moved to step out to the right, the way that would return her to Gryffindor Tower, possibly by way of the Room of Requirement, where she could check their simmering potion. For all its complexity, this particular formula only needed four days to brew, for which she was grateful. Sirius was practically ready to boil over himself with impatience. She would not hesitate to classify the man she had known as impetuous – but as a boy, the handsome youth was very nearly recklessness personified. She glanced at her watch, feeling the nip of time at her own heels. Sirius and James would probably be slicing and adding dung-beetle eyes right now-

"Miss Granger, I would appreciate it if you would take a walk with me," the Headmaster halted her footsteps, and she spun, eyes widening. He chuckled. "I did not merely use that as a ruse to get us both out of my office, though it may have seemed that way. There is a subject of the utmost importance that we ought to discuss."

"Sir?" she queried hesitantly. Was this the part where he told her she had to take her dangerous and attention-attracting powers and leave? She had been surprised at his lack of questions the previous day in the meeting with the others – perhaps he had simply been saving them for a private reprimand and dismissal.

He smiled semi-apologetically, twinkle returning to his gaze as a mischievous tone invaded his voice. "I find that the Forbidden Forest has much to recommend it as a place for a bit of thinking at this time of year."

Hermione felt as if she'd been sucker punched, all the breath leaving her in one audible _whooosh_. He _knew_. He wanted her to take him to the site of their unintentional summoning.

She could hardly deny him. To her knowledge, no one said 'no' to Albus Dumbledore. "Of course, sir," she replied, maturity betrayed by recovering her aplomb much faster than any third year and many grown witches would have in the same situation. She reversed direction and started down the passage to her left, leading them. "It would be my honor."

888

"I am not going to expel you, Miss Granger," the soft, almost-amused voice came from behind her as they stamped through the snow. Hermione winced involuntarily at the powerful wizard's inadvertent reading of her dismal thoughts.

"No?" she responded, and turned to look him full in the face, worrying creasing her forehead and bringing her teeth forward to nibble on her lower lip.

"No. I sent you here – and if your story about Mr. Malfoy and the misguided Miss Zabini has brought one thing very much to light, it is the constant danger you are in. Alex Mrozcek said that your station as the Node makes you the most powerful witch in the world. I imagine that Lord Voldemort would go to great lengths to secure such a talisman in his arsenal." He cleared his throat and the eyes that radiated such abundant energy glowed with compassion. "I cannot cast you out for him to find. In addition to the damage a long-term incarceration with Tom Riddle would do to you, it would be a terrible mistake in the war. In spite of Mr. Malfoy's breach, Hogwarts remains one of the safest places in Britain – and I confess," the sky-colored orbs crackled with eccentricity, the familiarity of the doddering Dumbledore from her first Welcoming Feast oddly soothing her, "you are quite a puzzle. I have no wish to let such a fascinating study out of my sight."

The young woman arched an eyebrow at her Headmaster, wondering if he was pulling her leg, awkwardly certain that part of him was dead serious. She, too, possessed a scholar's mind, and the idea of studying someone deliberately inserted into history like the deft slice of a surgeon's knife tingled in her brain as well.

But it was peculiar to be the object of such curiosity.

"What are you hoping to find in the Forest, sir?" she asked him.

"Find? I am not so sure that I am seeking, Miss Granger. But I do believe that returning you to the place where you performed such astonishing magic will answer a few questions."

"Placing the animal back into its native habitat and observing how it reacts?" she replied dryly. He surprised her by laughing aloud, a rich, barrel-chested sound entirely at variance with the slender frame that housed it. He did not color in embarrassment nor counter her claim, but tilted his head, conceding her victory.

"Astute, Miss Granger. But then, your intelligence has not been in doubt since your very first lesson here."

A memory of Professor McGonagall praising her eleven-year-old self as the elder witch held up a matchstick just beginning to show signs of going silver at the ends danced in front of Hermione's eyes, and it was with a strange jolt in her mid-section that the young witch realized that this memory was not accompanied by the bittersweet longing that had become an almost permanent backdrop on her emotional landscape. It was...removed. As if it had happened to someone else, or so many years ago that it was now simply a remembrance, without feeling of any kind attached, like an event from her very young childhood.

Frantically, Hermione scrambled to summon up memories of Harry, Ron and her other friends from the Hogwarts that she defined as her own, dashing madly through the past few months, discarding recollections of Sirius' laugh, of James' Exploding Card castle, of Snape's secretive and delighted smile, swimming past Lily's bright eyes as if diving deep into a Pensieve to re-discover something precious-

And as the stream came, Ron's white face after his poisoning on his birthday; the bright smile he had turned on her only a few days before she left; Harry's eyes shining with glee as they watched Catherine Wheels cavort inside the Great Hall, setting fire to Umbridge's robes, the caress of loneliness twined around her. She reached for it, wrapping herself in it, savoring the sting she had fought for so long, clutching the line that led to the future – and the life she would return to. Relief accompanied the pain she had focused on submerging for months. She could not grow accustomed to this world. She was here to learn, only to learn...

Lily's gleaming jade gaze replaced Harry's, Snape's solemn but not-yet-hardened and cynical face covering Ron's boyish one, and the feeling of loss sharpened abruptly. She might have come as a student and a soldier, but there was no denying her attachment to this place so like and unlike her own, especially the inhabitants, who overlapped themselves in the shifting patterns of her recollections.

"Miss Granger?" the Headmaster's voice cut short her too-oft-repeated spiral into worry and anger – the ever-present disadvantages to knowing what the future held.

"Sorry, sir," she murmured, and realized that she had stopped at the frozen shore of the steel-grey lake, staring at the hard surface where late afternoon rays skated to pool in blinding puddles. Her gut was shivering – she had not gone to the Headmaster's office equipped for another journey into February's unforgiving weather.

"I should have let you return to Gryffindor Tower for your cloak," he noticed her suppressed trembling and waved his wand. A delicious warmth settled over her, and she watched the snow around them fold in on itself as it melted slightly from the Warming Charm. "I'm afraid my eagerness to start out on this tempting quest for knowledge interfered with my common sense – do accept my apologies."

Hermione smiled. "I can hardly refuse them, sir, when you have made me warm anyway."

"Most gracious. Shall we continue? Were you actually in the Forest, or just on the other side of the lake?"

"In the Forest, sir." The gentle wave of his hand was an invisible push forward, and Hermione continued, finding a trail of Hagrid's massive tracks and stepping in his footprints, preferring not to break her own new path in the glittering and crusted snow.

They reached the far side of the lake surprisingly quickly – and the young witch was grateful for her curious Headmaster's unexpected silence. In spite of the quantity of information the dryad had imparted to them, there was much she simply could not explain satisfactorily – like the automatic, instinctive and almost entirely uncontrolled use of music that had rippling effects on the world as a whole.

As they crossed the tree line into the darker world of the forest, the large oak she thought she might recognize now in her dreams looming only a few yards in front of them, the Node felt a frisson of power tingle in the soles of her feet, climbing up her bones. It was distant, but with a steady cadence that fell into rhythm with her beating heart. The ground suddenly molded to her prints, as if making specific spaces for her feet, guiding her homecoming. She was abruptly and completely aware of the mud under the snow, and the slumbering roots of the giants around her buried in the frozen ground. _This_ was the land that had come to her direct aid, and she could feel its recognition running through her, a complex matrix in muscle and collective memory.

"What do you feel?" Dumbledore's quiet, neutral voice asked behind her, sensitive, as always, to changes in his environment.

"Connection," Hermione whispered, and she closed her eyes, opening her hands so that her palms faced the oak still partially obscured by several smaller specimens, breathing in the air that also seemed to stream into and around her, bathing her, ready to perform whatsoever she willed.

"Fascinating. On what scale?"

"Faint...if a brass band marched through, they would drown it out, but, for instance..." she lifted her hand to grasp the narrow tip of a tree branch next to her, a low note vibrating in her throat, almost a growl more than a musical sound. The elderly professor held his breath, fighting the urge to silence her, the prejudice against such song ingrained so young that to protest it seemed common sense and second-nature.

Her voice modulated a half step up, and Dumbledore was astonished to see the branch move forward ever-so-slightly, growing a quarter-inch at the Gryffindor's command. Cold smothered him, twisting his previous curiosity in his gut. It had been one thing to sit in his office with a cup of tea and learn the history that the Keeper's Concilium had seen fit to tell, maintaining the illusion that the subject remained confined to the world of theory and academics. It was another thing to actually witness even so small a manifestation of her power.

A distinct mewl of protest came from the roots she had just discovered beneath her, and with a feeling of guilt, Hermione stopped, and turned her brown gaze on the tree with an apologetic smile. "Sorry," she told the plant.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Growing during the winter is unnatural – she is sleeping. For me to force the beech to awaken is unkind, to say the least. Especially for something that is no more than a test of my own abilities." So saying, she ducked forward, her goal the gnarled oak of her summoned spirit, and the wizard behind her noted an unconscious grace that she had acquired between leaving the bright, sun-lit lawn where she had been stiffly aware of her status as his student and the shadows of these trees, where she unknowingly felt herself a queen. Unease rumbled louder at the back of his mind. Here it was her power, and not his, that held sway – for all his many years of learning and accomplishment, this young witch had been endowed at birth with a magic he could never hope to comprehend.

"Here," she announced with certainty, pulling to a halt some thirty yards from the edge of the wood. "This is where I was the other night. This oak tree."

Neither the aging professor nor his enigmatic student knew what they were expecting as Hermione tentatively took up her place in the center of the sunken snow, overlapping footprints from two nights ago plainly visible in the large ring of white the four had trampled flat, preserved by the clear weather. The prickly tenor of her connection to the earth resounded slightly louder within her, and she could feel the sluggish nature of the dryad, slumbering as well.

But as the minutes wore on, Hermione facing her new mentor's home and Dumbledore maintaining a respectfully wary distance, nothing else occurred. The forest remained as still as any normal winter's day, when most of its inhabitants had either migrated or were hibernating.

"I'm sorry, sir," she ventured hesitantly, turning back to face the azure eyes. "I don't think anything is going to happen."

The Headmaster's face betrayed neither surprise nor disappointment. Indeed, observing the young woman's fluidity – a quality she lacked within the imposing walls of the school – and the way the beech had grown at her command had been quite enough for the curious wizard for today.

"It's quite all right, Miss Granger. As I told you, I am not sure that I expected anything to 'happen'. Wandless magics rarely manifest at our convenience. However, it has become abundantly clear to me that this is what I sent you to learn, and we must find a way for you to do so without disturbing the rest of us every time you practice. The perils for everyone are far too great – the number of owls I've had to answer in the past forty-eight hours confirms that the hysteria against your gifts is growing. We have thirteen students who will be withdrawn following that display."

His tone was not accusatory, but Hermione's hand flew to her mouth as her cheeks colored in mortification. He smiled at her. "I do not blame you, and if what you have to learn is so critical I would risk sending you two and a half decades through time to seek it, I have no doubt that the trade is fair. There is simply no reason to encourage a repeat panic since there are ways of containing it."

It was Hermione's turn to observe as the elderly man closed his sharp eyes and slowly drew his wand. For a long moment, silence dominated the wood, his breathing so deep and even that she wondered if he had fallen asleep on his feet. When the end of his wand erupted in a silver Pegasus, the young witch gasped, stepping backwards involuntarily as the magnificent Patronus – so different than its cousins, the skeletal thestrals, beat its feathery wings and launched itself through the brittle, ice-crusted canopy and into the blue sky.

Her anxiety over who Dumbledore might be summoning was allayed as she watched it wheel in a tight circle just overhead, tracing the same spherical pattern above the treetops over and over again. She was only vaguely aware of her professor muttering a few spells behind her as she watched the glittering beast weave to and fro – reaching for her new connection with the air to determine its purpose.

The answer rebounded so gently she strained to catch it, holding her breath as if hearing something of critical importance over a crossed wire.

Protection. The Pegasus was creating a private pocket in the school's defenses uniquely keyed to her and her gift.

"That ought to do it," Dumbledore announced behind her, his more corporeal voice severing her link as the Pegasus dissipated. Hermione turned to him to see his eyes sparkling with good humor. "I must ask you and your friends to limit your playing to this twelve-by-twelve foot area," he told her briskly, twisted fingers sweeping to take in an area that she was relieved to see included her oak. "The wards have been adjusted to allow for the enormous fluctuations you cause, but only right here. The castle's shields will, in effect, absorb all the magical echo you create, keeping us from hearing you and from feeling the effects of what you're playing."

Hermione stared at him, acutely aware of the enormous trust that he had placed in the hands of four children. _Power that could irrevocably alter or destroy the world_. "Sir-" Words failed her. There was no way to express both her gratitude and the back-bending weight of responsibility he had just set over them.

The understanding expression that stole across his grooved face, the sadness that tinged his eyes, told her he had read her features and the wizard of more than one hundred years sighed. How had it come to this? Using children to fight screamed against every moral fibre of his being – the young and the innocent where those who were supposed to be _most_ protected. But more than twenty years from now, they were losing, and fate had once more twisted itself to make the most likely candidate for victory a seventeen-year-old student.

But despite her prodigious abilities, the young woman in front of him was still in many ways only a girl, and he could see the heaviness bowing her frame, the too-old look she had worn when he had first met her peaking in her eyes.

_We can only be what we are. No more, no less_, he recalled the quiet words of Armando Dippet from many years ago when the then-Transfiguration professor had expressed deep-seated worries about Tom Riddle. That the Headmaster would gladly adopt the girl's burden as his own was immaterial. He could not, and so had to leave her to carry the sword, unable to do more than indicate the correct direction for her march.

His hand fell gently on her shoulder and squeezed, the slender, slightly crooked fingers belying his strength, their firm grip a testament to his regret and support. "Do not feel the need to say anything, Miss Granger. Miss Zabini's disappearance is proof enough of the dangers you will encounter and the strength you will need to overcome them. I would spare you if I had the ability."

_The Node and The Chosen One_. _What a pair we shall make,_ Hermione thought grimly of Harry, hammered over fire to forge a savior from his first year of age, restraining her desire to lash out at the older wizard for the unfairness of the universe. Dumbledore was, after all, merely human. Regardless of his seeming omnipotence, he neither constructed nor truly controlled the events that had shaped her life.

"Thank you, sir," she managed quietly.

"Now, I think afternoon tea is being served and as you had an abridged lunch, you should probably get some nourishment," he said, purposefully steering her out of her realm and back into his dominion. "Never forget, Miss Granger, that if you need anything, all you need to do is ask."

"Yes, sir," she answered dutifully. Headmaster and pupil made their way across the lawn in stillness, too wrapped in their own thoughts to make an effort at anything resembling normal conversation.


	20. Severus Major

Disclaimer: Not mine, all non-profit work, rights are fully owned by JKR, WB and others.

A/N: Again, my apologies for the time in between updates! Thanks to my beta, Tinka! Notes for previous reviews are at the bottom of the chapter – thank you to everyone who is reading!

Severus Major

"D'you think Hermione'll have finished with Dumbledore by now?" James asked as they slowly tilted the dung beetle eyes, now the consistency of coarse, black sand, into the deep emerald potion.

"Shhh," Sirius hushed him, his dark eyes seeming to grow more opaque with his concentration as he tipped the bowl the rest of the way, allowing the last of the powdered substance to float down to the watery surface.

As the last speck landed, both of the boys brewing and the two sitting on stools nearby held their breaths. If they'd done it right, the potion should hiss, bubble for twenty seconds and turn a pale shade of the same color – a pastel instead of jewel tone.

As it began to bubble, a tentative grin spread over James' face. Sirius remained absolutely still, willing it to become the color of the tall, wild grass on the moors in summer-

He whooped as the popping subsided and it shifted greens, smiling broadly as both Remus and Peter jumped from their seats to study their success. "Fantastic," Remus breathed. "See, James? Hermione was right – you _can _brew Potions."

"Only if I care about the outcome," James replied, and though his tone was flippant the sentiment was genuine, and Remus found himself smiling shyly. The werewolf had truly been lucky the day that James Potter decided to befriend him as a first-year, saving him from sitting huddled and alone at Gryffindor's lunch table.

"Now what?" Sirius asked, watching Peter skim over the recipe with a stubby finger. The round teen sighed impatiently, a displeased expression that Sirius favored scrunching up his chubbier face.

"Now we wait some more. This has to settle for the next six hours."

Remus and James reflexively checked their watches as Sirius groaned aloud. "We'll still have time to do the next step today, Sirius," Remus pointed out. "It's only about half-three."

"Almost tea time. Let's go see if Hermione is done with the Headmaster," James said, reaching for his schoolbag and slinging it over his shoulder. The rest of his friends followed suit and they quietly poked their heads around the door of the secret room, checking the corridor for signs of others. When none were found, they swiftly filed out, watching as the door was swallowed, wood giving way to smooth stone wall.

"This is an amazing room," Sirius remarked as they started down the corridor.

"Yeah – one has to wonder how Hermione knew it was there," James responded in the tone of someone who was not going to answer his own question. But behind him, Remus stopped walking, a nagging feeling in his gut increasing, the little details of too many incidents littering his mind, pieces of a puzzle that he had yet to determine the size or shape of, but knowing that at its center was their new best friend.

How _had _Hermione known it was there? She had been at Hogwarts for a mere six months. And though she read voraciously, no amount of book learning could account for the automatic knowledge her body possessed of castle and grounds, the ease with which she moved, the seeming innate sense of timing she had when jumping staircases or avoiding the fortress' quirky traps.

"Remus?" His friends had stopped at the far end of the hallway and were giving the werewolf identical looks of concern. "All right?"

"Yes. I was trying to remember whether I'd forgotten something," he fabricated vaguely, moving his feet again. He wished he could name the peculiar feeling that sometimes pervaded him, but it was dim, a ghost one caught out of the corner of an eye but disappeared when stared at full-on. "But I don't think I did," he supplied as Sirius raised his eyebrows, waiting for a conclusion.

One moving staircase later, they were in the corridor leading to the Headmaster's gargoyle. As they strode up to the imposing stone guardian, a solitary figure rounded the opposite corner, intent on the same destination.

"Snivellus," Sirius muttered, jabbing James in the ribs as the Slytherin drew closer.

"What are you doing here, Potter, Black?" Severus snapped. His family had requested his presence and after the events of the past two days, he had no desire to bandy hexes with Hermione's Gryffindor crowd. The Headmaster's office was in a little-used section of the castle – if the four of them decided to do something unpleasant to him, it could be some hours before their mischief came to light.

"I fail to see what business that is of yours," James rejoined quickly. The memory of his pale-faced rival's ease with Hermione butted to the front of his mind, and a poisonous thought occurred to him – was Snape here for the same reason they were? Indignation and protective jealousy roared to life, and James found his wand in his hand before he stopped to think about it.

"Leave off Hermione, Snivelly, or you will find yourself regretting that you were born," the messy-haired boy hissed dangerously.

Severus smirked. So _that's_ what all their dirty looks during the previous forty-eight hours were about. "Sorry, Potter, but it seems that your," his flickering gaze took in the rest of them, lingering especially long on Peter, who had drawn his wand but was still tucked nervously behind Remus, "irresistible charms have at last found someone unaffected by them. My relationship-" his use of the word was deliberate, and he was rewarded with four sharp hisses of displeasure "-with Hermione is hardly relevant to you."

Sirius' wand point jerked upwards, but Severus cast a swift _"Protego."_ The jinx dissipated harmlessly on the shield, showering the grey stone corridor with sparks.

As James fired another spell to rebound off Severus' defenses, Remus whispered urgently, "Professor Dumbledore!" Five pairs of adolescent eyes snapped up to the end of the corridor, where the Headmaster was striding towards them in a blaze of white beard and turquoise robes. Wands vanished as quickly as they had appeared, and by the time their professor had drawn level with them, their exchange had been limited to mutinous looks.

"Not fighting, I hope?" Dumbledore said briskly. An indistinct "No, sir," came from all parties. "Excellent – it is such a waste to see some of Hogwarts' best minds bent on causing one another pain. Now, Mr. Snape, your aunt and uncle are waiting, I believe?"

"Yes, sir." At the sour look on Sirius' face, Severus could not restrain his swift, almost inaudible barb. "Fancy that, Black, _I _have a reason other than unadulterated nosiness for coming."

Remus' next words wiped out his surge of superiority, even as they distracted Dumbledore from giving Severus more than a stern look. "Sir – Hermione?" The same flood of envious possession that James had just grappled with jolted through the Slytherin's blood, choking his veins as he glowered at the gentle boy, consciously restraining twitching fingers that wanted to do no more than slam the Gryffindor against a wall and order him to keep his paws to himself. Hadn't she turned Lupin away?

Apparently unperturbed and unaware of the seething undercurrents eddying around him, the Headmaster smiled down at the anxious Remus. "Miss Granger should be in the Great Hall at tea – I interrupted her lunch, and felt she should get something to eat."

"Thank you, sir," they chanted in unison, and as Dumbledore turned to quietly murmur his password to the gargoyle, Sirius locked eyes with Severus, obsidian mirrored there, hard light reflected in both pairs of eyes.

"We'll finish this later, Snivelly."

Severus' lip curled. "How utterly unoriginal. Sirius Black making threats. I'm quaking where I stand." He sketched a mocking half-bow as the gargoyle moved aside, taking refuge in the Headmaster's averted gaze. "I await your convenience – be sure to bring your gang. You'll need them." The ugly look that maligned James' face promised another fight right here, but then Severus was being ushered into the dark, winding stairwell with the elderly wizard's impeccable knack for keeping the peace, and the four Marauders were left to stare after him furiously before continuing downstairs in their quest for jam, scones and the witch who had become indispensable to them.

888

"Lucius." His lord dragged the name, the 's' at the end elongating into a hiss that seemed to delight in slithering down the young man's spine one agonizing vertebra at a time, chills spreading to tingle in all the nerves on his back, peaking painfully at elbows and wrists, flushing the proud blond with cold. His school rivals and underlings would have laughed to see the boy who flagrantly flaunted his influence in their corridors and common room shivering with no more decorum than a ten-year-old caught with his father's racing broom.

He swallowed his nervousness, hoping his voice would be the correct pitch as he moved forward and dropped to his knees. "My lord."

Over his bowed head, Voldemort laughed. "You fear, and yet you grow better at concealing it. Your improvement indicates spine." Lucius could hear approval in his master's voice and though he did not dare feel triumph, he did allow himself a spurt of satisfaction. The Dark Wizard's favor was not something quickly granted or easily gained, and though the son of Abraxas knew he was a long way from such accolades, at least he was no longer enduring his master's severe displeasure.

"The girl has proven as valuable as I had foreseen – and she is talented as well. Your part in her capture has fortunately been kept quiet – or at least, out of the _Prophet_." Though Voldemort had not phrased a question, the silence that fell indicated his expectation of an answer.

"My lord, there were no witnesses. Only the American witch, and you were gracious enough to allow us to return to Hogwarts in time for Walden and I to rejoin our Housemates in the Great Hall. When Professor Slughorn counted us, we were precisely where we were expected to be. She cannot prove anything, and she is a foreigner, while my father's standing at the Ministry is such that no one will believe her if she talks." The pale wizard still towering over him smiled thinly at the son's veiled contempt for his father. If only the younger Malfoy knew...but there were some things that had to remain secrets, even within families.

"So you believe yourself still fully capable of acting as my servant at Hogwarts?" the lord pressed quietly. It was a test for the boy, one of his youngest and most inexperienced followers who, nevertheless, held a highly coveted position within the enemy camp. Cowardice would not serve, but neither would false bravado or arrogance. No matter what the evidence was, teenagers lived in worlds of fluctuating fantasies – what was real today would be false tomorrow, best friends were made and discarded in a matter of months. Lucius' daring kidnapping from under the nose of Albus Dumbledore was being kept quiet from the world at large – something that Anthony Zabini himself had a large hand in – but at school, enough people might believe the truth sheerly because it was sensational enough to appeal to their dramatic view of life.

And it was the student body of Europe's finest school of witchcraft and wizardry that the Dark Lord was interested in plundering, not her myriad treasures or knowledgeable professors. It would not suit at all if Lucius had been rendered impotent as a recruiter and subtle guide with this single act.

The caution in platinum blond's voice betrayed his parallel thought process, knowing the cost of lying, desperate not to displease again. "I think so, Master. Maybe a few of the girl's friends will believe her, but not more than that...and a hint that you taught me some magic to breach the wards around Hogwarts will bring more of our esteemed House to your banner, not less."

Voldemort tilted his head, red-flecked eyes dimming to velvet black as he considered the suggestion. Rumor and the gossip mill – both eagerly expounded upon by the _Daily Prophet_ – were allies more insidious than Dementors and farther reaching than even the best-placed spies. Objective truth was irrelevant – it was what people _believed_ to be true that affected decisions of fight, flight and side. That his few Death Eaters could be stamped out with relative ease was something a terrified population and ineffective Ministry hadn't recognized, and their campaign of terror aimed to keep it that way.

He was pleased that the student was already demonstrating a complete grasp of this principle. He had despaired, in the eight months since giving Lucius the Mark, that he had, indeed, misjudged the boy's potential. But his instinct for always coming out on top made Voldemort certain that with a few years hard experience under his belt, Lucius Malfoy would make an excellent general. "That is agreeable. Be careful that you do not overdo it." Lucius nodded. "Now, in addition to dropping all the right hints in the correct ears for your few remaining months prior to graduation, I need you to find another direct connection to the transfer girl..."

888

"How much do we have to take?" Sirius asked eagerly. Peter, in his self-appointed role of Book-Reader, found the requisite instructions at the bottom of the page.

"Just a tablespoon full," he said.

"That's all?" James asked.

"Not really all that surprising, is it?" Remus asked, peering into the small pewter cauldron the five of them were hunched around. It wasn't much larger than his mother's medium-sized mixing bowl, and even so, it was only half-full. "If you had to take a lot, we'd have needed a bigger cauldron and more ingredients."

"Even so...we used a lot of stuff...I thought there would be more."

"Water evaporates when it boils, James," Hermione reminded him with a smile. "Leaving us with a potion that is almost more paste than liquid." This could not be denied. At its final stage, the potion had cooled to a lighter brown, the density giving it the appearance of chocolate fudge. Sirius tentatively started to reach in with his spoon, only to have Hermione's hand stay his wrist. "Where did that come from?"

Sirius blinked, shrugged. "Great Hall. I swiped it during breakfast."

Hermione rolled her eyes and turned to Peter. "Does the recipe specify anything in regards to ingestion?"

The boy read the final paragraph and shrugged. "It says the potion should remain effective as long as it doesn't come into contact with wood."

The witch released her friend, waving at the silver implement clutched in his fingers. "Go for it."

Sirius completed his dip, measuring out a careful mouthful and sniffed it cautiously. The action reminded Hermione so much of a dog circling a bone it was going to eat that she stifled a laugh. No wonder the wizard in front of her had become Padfoot.

"It certainly doesn't _smell_ like chocolate," he said ruefully, and, taking a deep breath comprised of excitement and nervousness, he popped the thick mess into his mouth.

His eyes widened in surprise, and Hermione found herself holding her breath, praying that it was merely because of the flavor and not some ghastly mistake they'd made in the brewing process. The last five days had been so packed with frustrations that sometimes the time traveler felt that if she didn't scream she would surely go mad with the sound rebounding under her skull. James and Sirius' prickliness about Severus, the peculiar, intensely uncomfortable moment she'd shared with Klytemnestra's father, and worst of all, their enforced silence as Lucius Malfoy swaggered through the halls grated on nerves already raw with the enormity of the task she was facing – and the fact that she had dragged three others, unknowingly, into its path.

If the potion had been botched, she was sure she would break down right now-

"Gack! That stuff tastes awful! Like...like the Quidditch locker room mixed with a touch of scorched butter and charred fish," Sirius gagged as he swallowed the last of it.

"Thanks, Siri, for making it easier on the rest of us," James muttered dryly, but he didn't look revolted, merely curious, as they waited for the minutes to tick past. The book said to allow five minutes for the effects to begin.

Remus' hazel eyes were fixed firmly on his watch as he counted seconds, then minutes, and... "How do you feel?" he asked, head coming up as his clock ticked past the five-minute marker.

The tallest boy's eyes had dropped closed, though he stayed quite steady on his feet. As he opened them, his lips parted, but words were not forthcoming. "Uhh..." A large black dog gamboled from Sirius' tongue, following this incoherent noise, growing larger as wisps of transparent smoke formed the fullness of legs, coat and shaggy head – the appropriate shape and color of the animal, but insubstantial, like a Patronus. Following the dog came a panther, which bounded around three walls of the room before stopping to wait, crouched, in one corner, eyes luminous and predatory even though they were smoke. The final creature to erupt from between the tall boy's lips was a parrot with brilliant red, green and blue plumage. It flapped to settle on James' shoulder, perching proudly and fluffing its head crest, showing off its magnificent beauty.

Sirius stared, waited until it seemed clear that these three were his choices, and swallowed hard. "A bird, a dog and a wildcat," James voiced curiously when it became obvious that Sirius wasn't going to speak yet. "Interesting choices. I wonder why?"

"Each animal says something different about the wizard or witch who conjures it," Hermione recited from memory.

"So these are all different aspects of my personality?" Sirius finally managed to find his tongue again.

"Probably," she answered.

"Makes sense," Remus added, and with an honesty Hermione never would have used on Sirius Black, he continued, "The dog because you are friendly, loving and playful." And indeed, the great beast had run circles around all of them, planting barely-felt paws on shoulders and jumping excitedly when Peter had fished out a marble from a pocket and rolled it across the room for him. "The panther because you are slick, graceful and enjoy hunting." Sirius darted a glance at Hermione, looking significantly less pleased with his friend's last comment. Hermione schooled her face to neutrality. It was true – both the way that Sirius deliberately pursued girls and his harassment of Severus bore the mark of one stalking, seeking a prize. "And the parrot...a bird probably because you have lofty ideals, and _this_ one because you are so concerned with how you look."

James, Hermione and Peter burst into laughter with this final, deft comment, and Sirius' sour expression. "If we're all quite finished skewering my psyche, why don't we let James go next?" he snapped irritably.

"Oh, leave off, Siri – we love you _because_ you can be a vain prat sometimes," James said with a wide grin. "We wouldn't change you for the world. I'm sure my options will tell everyone some rather unflattering things about me, too." With much less trepidation, James measured the same careful spoonful for himself and shoved it in his mouth, nose wrinkling in disgust as his tastebuds came in contact with the paste for the first time.

Five minutes later, the first animal to bounce into the room was another dog, although this one was slightly smaller, a golden retriever with ears and paws that were slightly too large, making the dog probably only three-quarters grown, which brought Hermione up short. Was it possible to undergo growth as an Animagus? If one became a caterpillar, for instance, would one wrap oneself in a cocoon and become a butterfly?

The long-legged, prancing stag that came second brought tears to Hermione's eyes and wiped out questions about insects as memories of Harry desperately casting this image of his father forth to save her life streamed in front of her eyes, and she swiftly rubbed her face to remove the tell-tale water. It lacked the silvery glow of her best friend's Patronus, but the large, liquid eye it turned on her nearly brought her to her knees with remembrances, and she gripped the table beside her to keep herself upright, grateful that the boys were all too keen on admiring the beautiful creature to notice her strange reaction,

James' last incarnation was a lion, which shook its large mane and gave the panther a disapproving look before padding to the wizard with glasses, sitting on his haunches and remaining almost as tall as the young man.

"Blimey," he whispered, reaching out slowly to touch the coarse mane.

"Peter?" Remus asked briskly, apparently uninterested in analyzing James as he had done Sirius. The pudgy third-year approached the cauldron with only a little trepidation, having seen the potion work exactly as promised twice now. Like his friends, he grimaced at the taste and hurried to clear his mouth, going still as they had, eyes half-closed as Remus' remained glued to his watch.

Peter's first animal was a large badger, white stripe running down its nose and back. "Hufflepuff's symbol," James muttered, and Hermione frowned at him. Peter's insecurities about being the smallest and undeniably least-talented student included in the Marauders were deep seated and growing. His unlikely Sorting into Gryffindor House was something that his peers in Slytherin had never ceased to use against him, and it was unkind of James to bring forth the question that had become a taunt, no matter that he had not meant it as such.

The creature ambling on the heels of the badger was a brown bear. Hermione's amber eyes went round in surprise, and she could see her shock reflected in James' and Sirius' lifted eyebrows. Only Remus looked unperturbed, and, as the slender, gentle boy was the one amongst them who became a mindless monster once a month, Hermione could understand why looks and even character didn't fool the werewolf. He had learned the hard way that what was hidden in the hearts of men was always unknown to those outside.

She found herself strangling sudden regret and a sense of sorrow as to the path Peter would carve in history. He had traits of the fiercely loyal badger, of the large but mostly peaceable omnivorous bear. But it would be his final form that indicated his road.

The rat scurried out last, curious and eager, sniffing for food and running over the paws of the lion, which shook it away easily. Peter shook his head in disappointment at the unimpressive creature. "Well, I definitely won't be taking _that_ form."

As a unit, all four boys turned to her expectantly. Hermione hesitated. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to be an Animagus – some of the effects were life-altering for her physiology, and history had written of only four Marauders...

But it wouldn't hurt to know her potential. Perhaps, twenty years from now, they had discovered a cure to the nastier downsides of using this magic. Maybe she could complete the process in her own time...

Stepping forward, she dipped the last spoon in, scraping out the bottom, and shoved the disappetizing mass into her mouth before she could convince herself otherwise. From the amused crinkling on the faces staring at her, she knew her features were telling them her dislike of the flavor. But Sirius had been correct. There was something about the texture that was distinctly reminiscent of old gym socks, down to the cottony dryness she felt as the last of the paste went down her throat in a glob.

Even as the weight of the ball settled in her stomach, a strange feeling of lightheadedness filled her, as if her brain had detached from her body and was reaching upwards...

Her eyelids had fallen as her mind ascended, swamped in white, fogged by mist, hiding shadows that shifted and moved, most of them fading even as she stretched forth mental fingers to find them...

Pressure began to build in the physical body she had left behind, like a kettle whistling as the water boiled. It was uncomfortable, pulling her back from this place she had yet to explore, she had to let it out-

Her mouth opened and out floated an otter, the twin to the Patronus she had learned to conjure in this very room last year with Harry. The sea animal flipped over on its brown, smoky back in mid-air and lazily began to swim, curious, intelligent face watching her closely as it inscribed circles around her person.

The pressure built faintly once more, peaked and she felt it subside as she breathed more smoke, feeling vaguely like a chimney as a horse formed before her eyes, trotting silently around the room, its hooves, like the paws of Sirius' dog and the claws of James' lion, making no noise against the granite.

For a final time, like a dam releasing its last flood of water, her throat tightened in preparation to loose her last option. An enormous bird of red and orange, looking more like a streak of flame than a live creature, winged from her lips to soar around the room, curved beak open as it dipped around them, weaving through the boys, looking for all the world like it was singing—

"A _phoenix_?" Sirius' voice brought her firmly back into her own body, severing her connection with the realm the potion had delivered her to.

"It can't be," she heard herself objecting, mind automatically spitting out the information it had digested long ago. "Humans cannot become animals that possess an innate amount of significant magic."

"We read the book, 'Mione," James replied, his eyes never leaving the brilliant bird that was now soaring over them in circles. "But there's nothing else that could possibly be. There are no non-magical birds of that size and color." His eyes met hers, dark brown shining with excitement.

Hermione tipped her head back, lifting her chin to observe the circling creature, feeling a pull on her body, a desire so tangible as to become a need – the hunger to fly, to stretch her wings and her voice together. The otter and the horse were beautiful, but they did not inspire such raw wanting, as if she were being denied life by holding to this crude, earth-bound form.

Her first thought went to the Echo. Ordinarily, witches and wizards could not take magical form, but the bird flashing over them put the lie to that assertion.

But she was far from ordinary – she was the key to the magic of life, her true talent lying not in the wand she wielded with deft precision, but in her harp and her voice.

And phoenixes alone, of all land-dwelling animals normal and magical, were gifted with the Power of Song.

888

Hermione glanced surreptitiously at Professor Torrenwright, who was currently circling Timothy Wilkes and Michael Avery, patiently demonstrating the proper wand movement for the counter to _Petrificus Totalus_. Severus stood at the desk in front of them, his mice properly Petrified and revived several times, he had carefully set his books in a wall around his desk and was watching them run to and fro, expression distant.

Feeling her gaze, the boy turned, black eyes shining with something that would have been a smile if it had graced his mouth. As it was, the look of wholly innocent, secretive delight caused an ache to bloom somewhere in the young Gryffindor's heart. She could not imagine the man he would become wearing such an expression.

Banishing the melancholy before it could move to claim her, she pointed her wand at a scrap of parchment on her desk and whispered a charm. It twitched, as if taking on a life of its own, and then fluttered upwards, madly beating little paper wings. Lifting from her desk, it floated through her peers to his scarred wooden table, where he unfolded it.

_Stay after._

He jerked around again, eyebrows already prepared to rise in silent query, their ability to communicate without words well-developed by the presence of her four-man guard. Her thick curls blocked her eyes as she swished her wand over Remus Lupin's mice, Petrifying them for him. He ignored the twist in his chest that now occurred several times daily when observing her with the Gryffindor boys – her friendship with them so open, so easily established and maintained. The strength of his longing for another night of practice was a double desire for both the music he craved and the ability to converse with her without fearing her classmates and his own.

As he turned away, he caught Sirius Black's suspicious, hate-filled gaze locked on him. _I must have been staring_, Severus thought, and as a blush tore up to his face for what he had likely betrayed, he ruthlessly suppressed it, swapping the revealing scarlet for a sardonic smile.

A quick glance at the clock told him to wait another five minutes. He returned his attention to his white mice, now wrestling with one another. "Mr. Snape? If you would be so kind as to show me your work?" The deep voice of their Defense professor pulled him from his thoughts, and Severus murmured, _"Petrificus Totalus!"_, freezing the hapless creatures together in their competition. He performed the counter-curse flawlessly, as expected, and received an approving nod from his teacher before the barrel-chested wizard moved on to the next row. Severus sighed. If only he could earn _one_ such nod from Professor McGonagall...

"Class dismissed!" The words he had been waiting for fell on his ears, and he began to slowly, methodically, pack up his bag, grateful that the pen he had created for the rodents involved most of the books in his sack – volumes that he could now replace very, very slowly as his classmates rushed out around him, eager to be finished with the day.

"I'll stay with you," Sirius murmured in a low voice when Hermione indicated that she intended to ask their professor a question.

"You don't need to," she replied quietly. "It's just a quick question, then I'll be along." Sirius didn't so much as look towards the door that James, Remus and Peter were all headed for.

"Sniv-" he stopped as she glared at him, swallowed bitterly and corrected himself, "_Snape_ is still here. I'll wait."

The witch glared at him, fury bubbling up in her. Why was it that all the boys she had decided to be friends with now and in the future felt as if they owned her? The memory of Ron Weasley's senseless jealousy over Viktor Krum jumped to mind, and she gritted her teeth in remembered and present anger.

"In case you've forgotten, Sirius Black, I can handle myself. And Severus' presence here doesn't concern you. So what if I found a friend in Slytherin?"

Sirius glanced over her head at the sallow boy, who was deliberately keeping his back to the miniature intra-House storm brewing in the back of the room. "He doesn't just want to be friends, Hermione," Sirius told her firmly. The look in his nemesis' eyes earlier had disturbed the handsome boy greatly. It was one thing for Hermione to be forgiving and kind to the young man who had always been an outsider. It was a female weakness that he had observed in other girls he knew – a compulsion to help the 'underdog'. But the look on the sallow face had been so similar to the one Remus had worn a scant couple of months ago – hope, hunger and caring merging on the thin, despised features.

He found himself stumbling backwards, Hermione having pushed him away from her in fury. "What he wants or doesn't want is no business of yours. I'll see you in the common room."

"Hermione-"

But she had turned her back on him firmly and marched right past where Severus waited, making up a spurious question to put to her professor until she was certain that Sirius had reluctantly retired from the room, unwilling to engage in open disagreement in front of the enemy. A quick answer later, and while Torrenwright leisurely set his classroom back in order, she returned to where Severus waited, his bag now completely ready.

"What happened?" he asked her tensely, all-too-cognizant of the fight she'd been having with Black, knowing that it shouldn't delight him and unable to quench his pleasure.

Hermione's teeth found the bottom of her lip, worrying the tender flesh as she suddenly wondered how to phrase her peculiar suspicions. "_I think your uncle may try to kill or capture me_," was out of the question. And there was no name to give to the distinctly unsettled feeling he had left her with. She _knew _that one day she would stand with him on a battlefield, both of them twisting their gift of music to attack and defend. But there had been no outward evidence of that in Hogwarts, no hint of the future his glance had convinced her existed.

It took her no more than a few seconds to shake her head, dispelling the hopes of telling him now and praying he had answers. Klytemnestra was grieving the loss of her twin, gone only four days, for all that it was Kassandra's own fault, and Hermione could not bring herself to add to the family burden. It would likely be some time before she encountered the Zabini family patriarch again. She could resolve that problem later.

"You know Sirius," she answered his question blithely, switching grooves of thought. "Thinks any girl that passes through his orbit belongs to him. Do you have time to practice? Tonight?" Her brown eyes glittered like a child with new toy, apprehensions banished for the excitement of the moment as she thought ahead to bringing her harp out into the snow and playing it for the first time...

Like a mirror, eagerness bounced back towards her from his black gaze, and a boy's grin creased his face, shaving off the premature years and making him look fourteen for the first time since she'd met him. "Your wish is, quite literally, my command. What time?"

"7:30."

888

The four figures that met together in the dark near the tall oak traded probing, solemn looks, as if testing the mettle and determination of one another. Hermione broke the stand-still first. "The headmaster has adjusted the wards to allow us to play without being heard by the rest of the castle. We can experiment without worrying that everyone is going to be hearing us."

Three heads nodded briefly and Hermione felt compelled to continue. "Be that as it may...as far as I know, only I have to do this..." She forgave herself that small lie even as she uttered it. She knew what path Severus would choose. "If any of you would rather not-"

"You heard Professor Dumbledore," Klytemnestra said quietly, but her black eyes glittered with a hot, forbidding light. "He can do nothing, no matter how much he believes us. I don't know how Malfoy made it back in time to escape suspicion, but this is the only way to help Kassandra. And," she gave Hermione a brief, spare smile, "I have spent my life hearing of you. You have the oath of my blood. It is not a word given lightly, and one that shall never be withdrawn."

"I'm not letting you come down here with two untrustworthy Slytherins on your own," Lily said before her friend's eyes could lock on her, but the cheeky smile she bestowed on the victims of her fun soothed ruffled feathers before they could truly rise. "What would Sirius Black say?" she added in mock horror.

Three snorts followed this ludicrous question and when she turned her eyes to him, Severus' obsidian depths spoke eloquently and firmly, erasing a need for vocalization. Hermione bowed her head in acceptance. She'd had to give them the option one more time. The dryad had told them that their road would not be an easy one, but Hermione alone had stood in front of the Death Eaters first hand, and knew that it was not a theatrical or grandiose statement.

Decision cemented, furtive smiles turned four mouths as they settled down to unpack their instruments. Lily's flute flashed in a line of silver in contrast to Severus' ebony-black clarinet, the warm wood of Klytemnestra's viola complimenting the lighter hue of Hermione's harp as the Gryffindor witch enlarged and transfigured it from a pretty trinket to a curved and polished work of exquisite craftsmanship, her spare cloak spread under it to protect it from the snow.

Lily brought the flute up, mouth pursed and ready to blow. Severus' lips were already fastened on his mouthpiece, tongue wetting the reed. Klytemnestra's right hand drew her bow as the viola found its well-worn place tucked under her chin. Hermione lifted her hands, faintly touching the goat-gut strings, savoring their feeling even under fingers that were now largely without their protective calluses.

Silence surged through them, almost as loud and potent as anything they might play, and all four shivered as they waited.

"He said he would be waiting..." Klytemnestra murmured as the quiet extended, seeming loaded and unnatural, the dryad markedly absent.

Hermione reached for the connection that she had awakened less than a week ago – had so much transpired in so little time? – seeking guidance, fighting the sudden fear of abandonment on this treacherous road that they had chosen to walk. He had not appeared for the headmaster, but that had not surprised her. The elderly wizard was an unknown factor, and the unfamiliar always carried with it the potential to be threatening. But last time he had revealed himself before all those assembled without a trace of hesitation.

So where was their teacher now?

Almost immediately in answer, though without consulting her brain, her fingers began to slowly pluck the harp strings, single droplets of sound rippling from her like a gentle fall of summer rain striking the surface of a lake. As both hands engaged, notes coming faster, she was aware of the others picking up her tempo and following her lead.

Hermione directed the efforts of her skillful hands towards the tree in front of them, hearing Severus' clarinet almost instantly shift with her intent, the woodwind calling entreatingly, inviting the tree spirit to emerge and join the dance.

They were rewarded in their efforts when the vast expanse of tree-bark began to part and the faun's cloven goat hooves stepped forth, the branches forming his hair arching like antlers as the tree disgorged him and sealed itself once more.

"Well done, Daughters and Son," he said warmly, and all four relaxed at the sound of his deep, rough voice, as if passing a test they had only just realized they were taking. "I am delighted to see that you have all returned and summoned me by virtue of request, not demand. May I assume that you are honoring your heritage and your world by taking up the burden you have been asked to bear?"

Feeling as if her feet were roots themselves as the pulse of the earth quickened beneath her boots, the world itself propelled Hermione's words, and her reply contained such inexorable power that Severus felt the hair on the back of his neck rise as the witch who had begun haunting his dreams dipped her head with the grace and command of a queen.

"We have."

888

"Heal her," the dryad commanded, gesturing to a young tree. The four peered at the sapling, twice Severus' height, oozing thick sap like heavy tears where a slender branch dangled by a few splinters, struck by the late-March lightning storm the previous night.

Hermione winced as she laid a hand on the tree. Her connection to earth had grown with six weeks of constant practice, and touching the smooth bark of the aspen now brought pain reverberating up her arm, feeling like her own limb was broken.

She heard the viola's long notes begin behind her and Lily's gentle whistling, flute sounding almost like the wind. But Severus was closest, and he placed the bell of his clarinet against the tree trunk, muffling his music as if he were blowing it into their unusual patient. Hermione did not return to her harp, but brought her other hand up and brushed her fingers over the split, singing in a low monotone, urging the shards to re-knit.

It was one of the first practical tests they had been given. They had melted and re-formed snow, helped call forth the early spring flowers and coax seeds to push through the earth, but that was all part of the natural order that occurred anyway year after year. It had not proven taxing to speed the process slightly as they learned the necessary control for the music they were creating.

But the art of healing plants had long been forgotten, and the quartet found themselves tiring even as they strengthened the aspen, listless branch gradually lifting as wood sealed itself, sap hungrily filling gaps, eager to be the necessary adhesive. The power expenditure was enormous, and Hermione heard first Lily fall silent, drained, then Klytemnestra, and finally the clarinet next to her, Severus dropping to his knees, sweat running down his long nose to drip into the soft spring ground.

She had to finish...

She was barely aware of her own voice faltering, then failing, the branch not-quite-sealed, and she ducked her head, embarrassed as she swayed and allowed herself to fold into sitting position. It marked the first time that they were unable to do all that the dryad had asked of them.

Contrary to their disappointment, the tree spirit smiled, and loosed a throbbing note that completed the job in the space of one breath. As the four adolescents looked up in amazement to see the sapling waving at them, and Hermione glimpsed, for an instant, the lithe form of a young girl – perhaps eight-ish – dancing in the healed tree, her message of gratitude quite clear.

"She has a faun?" the Gryffindor witch asked, rising.

"No. She has a nymph. My shape belongs exclusively to Oak." He favored Hermione with a rare look of surprise. "Every one of us has a spirit. It is how you, as a human, are capable of feeling us, of connecting to us. I am, however, pleased that you could see her. Spirits cannot emerge until their hosts are mature – which means you were looking _into_ the aspen. That is an improvement."

He turned to the rest of them. "You did well – it is no small thing to ask, the reparation and removal of pain. Can you feel it, yet? The relationship between you and the earth?" Both Lily and Klytemnestra shook their heads regretfully. Hermione had discovered that the welcoming she had received from this patch of ground had not been as automatic for the rest of them, though their mentor seemed unconcerned. He assured them that it was natural and that it would come with effort.

But tonight, Severus nodded. "Just for a moment, right before I stopped. I felt..." he paused, groping for the right language to describe something that could not be found in books, "I felt stronger, just enough to play my last few notes, like someone had pushed power through my feet."

The dryad's bark-beard twitched, and Hermione knew he approved. "Excellent. Son of Earth, I believe you are her Major, as I suspected you might be."

888

"What is a Major, sir?" Severus' question tumbled from his lips before they had even finished sitting down, the question eating at him for the past two days finally holding the promise of being answered as green grass rippled underneath them, providing them with dry, soft places to rest in response to Hermione's hummed request.

The dryad's eyes twinkled at the boy's eagerness, and Hermione was struck by some of the similarities between their tree-spirit guide and their human headmaster. For all their physical differences, they exuded the same boundless energy, genuine joy in teaching and the annoying certainty that they already knew far more than you ever would.

"The old world of magic was governed by strict hierarchies. Those that were purely social faded with the civilization they structured, but some of them are woven into the fabric of magic itself, and thus can neither recede into time nor be ignored, however irregular they might prove for modern convention." Hermione smothered a grin. The faun would probably always carry that dubious note in his voice when he spoke of the world that his four charges had introduced him to: a world without kings, where all the magical races were strictly separated except for business transactions, and where secrecy from Muggles had become ironclad law. Hermione had to admit that while she approved of the first, the last two were regrettable marks of the centuries yawning between the previous One and their current crisis.

"Learning how to use the Echo of Creation is no different. I told you weeks ago that two, three and four are stronger numbers than one, and so it has always been. The One of old surrounded him or herself with hundreds of extremely capable musicians, but even so, there was usually a group of a few – a half-dozen at the most, who were the most talented of these gifted players and the best scholars of music, and who played directly with the One. The most powerful of these was the Major – the rest were termed Minors – and they were the musicians who tapped deep into the power of the Echo, surpassing the surface abilities and effects of their fellows." His wooden face twisted, bark rippling in displeased lines. "They were those who accomplished the greatest amount of good – and, eventually, evil."

"If Severus is the Major, does that make Lily and I the Minors?" Klytemnestra asked.

The dryad nodded. "It does. Like planets circling a star, you orbit at close range. But the Major is more like a smaller, binary sun. He is her partner, his power overshadowed by hers but nevertheless greater than yours, and this makes him your secondary focal point. Daughter of Men and Daughter of Heaven, you complete their system. You form their buttresses and shoring, tied to the milder seasons of Spring and Autumn, the softer elements of Water and Earth, treading worlds between the extremes of absolute darkness and radiant light."

"In practical application, how does this take effect?" Hermione queried. Poetry was all very well, but thus far they had worked together, any power rift between the individuals largely submerged.

The dryad's face grew solemn, all traces of humor gone. "Wizards and witches may have forgotten or scorned such magic, but not all of the magical, and even the non-magical, world has. Think of how you healed the tree. Instinctively, the music knows your places. As the Node, you actually touched her, an intimacy you knew you had. Your Major used his instrument as a median for contact – not as close as you, but not nearly so far away as the Minors, who remained at a distance. You will find, as we practice, that sometimes your Minors and even your Major do not play to effect the world at large but to give you the strength to do so. Right now, you are learning the fundamentals of your power, and the illusion of equality is easy to maintain. But when you move to consolidate the alliances of the other races of earth, you will understand the functions you perform – none of you less vital than the others, but all of you performing different tasks."

888

"It is good of you to care so deeply for your surroundings, Daughter of Creation." The dryad's crackling voice interrupted Hermione's check of the aspen as she hummed her pitch-perfect 'A', listening to the tweaking of Klytemnestra's viola as the Slytherin tuned her instrument. The young woman had made it habit to ensure that the skinny limb now pushing out tiny leaves showed no sign of snapping. It did not, as it had not in the ten days since they had healed it. "A rare attribute in one so powerful."

"She has taught us a valuable lesson, sir," Hermione replied carefully. "And it takes no time to look."

"Be that as it may, you will find that not many take that small amount of time."

Hermione turned, inspection complete as Klytemnestra brought her bow across taut strings with an expression of satisfaction that brought a smile to Hermione's face in turn. How often had she longed for this sound, the low murmur of piping, whistling and vibrating that signified an orchestra's preparation to begin? For years she had feared she might never find it in her adopted world, and the illegality of it did not impinge on the one-time rule-quoting Gryffindor's happiness as it filled her ears.

"You have mentioned twice that we must seek the help of the other species of magic-holders," she started slowly on a question that had been nibbling at the edges of her brain for the past two months. "Who are they? And how do we approach them?"

"Before you can speak with any of them, you must immerse yourselves fully in the music and understand its potentials and properties. It is not so much their help that you require as their blessing and their promises of magical fealty, oaths you can only expect if they trust both you and your grasp on the power they will grant you."

"Power-?"

"I told you once that it is better to ask than to demand, young one. All created things are tied to the Echo, sentient beings who used music in ages past more so than most. Their willing consecration of your efforts is necessary for you to face the Other, for their unique relationships with the Echo will be added to yours. But they are wary of humanity – your race has not treated the rest of the inhabitants of this world particularly well since you wrested control from the centaurs."

"How long must we wait?" Hermione asked hesitantly. Mastery in music took a lifetime to achieve, and she was fairly certain that she did not have the decades required. In less than twenty years she would run into herself on these very grounds, and that had not happened.

The branched head cocked slightly, casting long shadows from the sun's last light in the early spring evening. "It is not a question of time, but of learning. Towards these races you must display the utmost respect – in how you approach them, where and when. When you are certain you know, it will be time. But like any teacher, I can only show you so much, lead you so far. Look to the world you were born in, Daughter of Creation, and you will find that not all of mankind has forgone the ancient traditions as wizards have. Wrapped though they are in superfluous ritual, you can discover what you seek – and you will better understand why you searched for it."

He had refused to say more, directing them instead to practice, and the mood that night was reflective as the four strode across the lawns in darkness, dropping in through the entrance next to Slytherin's common room as had become their custom. The Gryffindor girls ducked a few yards to the right and into the moving fireplace that allowed them a passage back to their tower dormitory as the Slytherins re-joined their fellows. Hermione knew with surety that this narrow tunnel had never been included on the Marauder's Map, and she wondered if it was luck they would never find it or her own deliberate secrecy.

"You think he means the Muggle world?" Lily ventured, voice reverberating oddly off the low ceiling as she shuffled behind Hermione, single-file in the narrow passage.

"He must. He said the world I was born in..." Hermione frowned. She had never heard of cross-disciplining between the magical and non-magical human worlds. Even Muggle Studies wasn't for such things, but rather, for pure- or half-blooded wizards intrigued by a society foreign to them, a study of culture, not of magic.

"And considering Hogwarts is miles from any Muggles, where are we going to start looking?"

"Tomorrow? In the early history part of the Muggle Studies section of the library."

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A/N: Thank you all for reading, feedback is appreciated!

shogi: Yay! Thank you for commenting on Zabini and Hermione's interaction...I will confess that in the current plan of things, he does not have a happy ending. How can he? I like having a Pegasus Patronus for Dumbledore. My beta remarked that she thinks it's a phoenix in canon, and I think she's right, but I'm using the phoenix for Hermione, so I didn't want to repeat. Hermione and Harry are going to have an interesting time back in the future, whenever she manages to return. And Remus and Snape have a curious relationship over time. Right now, it's very antagonistic...thanks, once again, for a superb review that I truly enjoyed!

Elisandra1, daring2dream, KITTYKAT, Monnbeam, Linnorria, gray-eyed Athena, iloveseverussnape, Wind of Freedom, and The Queen of Confusion: Thank you all so very much for reading! A new chapter is up, sooner than the last, and I pray that it doesn't disappoint! Hopefully I can have chapter twenty-one coming out at some time in the near future...

eanne: Thank you – that's a huge compliment! This story is rather complicated, isn't it? I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Sarah116: Severus and Hermione are getting there. This chapter has the forging of their individual connection, which will definitely be leading into some interesting territory later on...

missevilprincess: Ah, the Zabini family...we'll have to see, won't we? And yes, Hermione will both be learning by trial-and-error and with the Dryad. For some reason, he doesn't want to show himself to Dumbledore...

xaxstoryxaboutxlovex: Severus and Hermione'll be doing a lot more than kissing eventually – but keep in mind that she is still three years his senior, and he has to get up the courage to make some kind of move. Gratified that you like Dumbledore – he's an interesting piece of work, no?

Maddie50: Magic, my dear...Voldemort didn't want to endanger his servant at Hogwarts, and with all of the confusion, there was enough time for the job to be completed and for Lucius to make it back.

: Oh, thank you. Dumbledore is a difficult character for me to get right, especially after the publication of DH (I think the man got what he deserved when Snape killed him, personally) but, taking into account that he has been at war or preparing for war for much of his life, he has made some very difficult decisions. And I'm glad you liked the meeting between Mr. Zabini and Hermione – he won't be back for a few chapters, but they'll be seeing each other again.

dogmoon183: Thank you, thank you for coming back and reading! This fic is working its way towards being quite long, but I hope to be updating more regularly than I have in the past!

T: Hehe, I liked Lily's rant. In some ways, it makes a lot of sense and sort of ties in to Dumbledore's wondering of whether they sort too young. I am exceptionally glad you've stuck with me – thanks for reviewing!

PrincessTilly: Woot! This fic is much nicer to Dumbledore than Paradise Lost, I've given him a rough ride and little mercy in that piece, but I like writing a kinder, less pressured Dumbledore as well. Hermione and Snape's parting will be...interesting. And, needless to say, difficult. And as for whether Hermione's navigated path between the Marauders and Snape will be successful...we'll see! Thank you so much for a wonderful, detailed review!

Estriel: More Severus-Hermione is definitely on the horizon...and I hope you enjoyed their development in this chapter as well!

alkrodien: This chapter had some action! And the next should as well. Thanks for reading!


	21. Research and Inquiries

Disclaimer: The works of JKR are in no way mine, nor do I have any illusions that they are. I am exceedingly grateful that she allows us to play in her universe.

A/N: A big thanks goes to my beta, Trinka, who is wonderfully supportive of this work in addition to correcting it's occasionally creative grammar. A million thank yous to everyone who has read and reviewed this story – the support means the world to me!

Research and Inquiries

"Severus and I drafted up a list," Klytemnestra said quietly as they grabbed chairs towards the back of the library, hidden both from Madam Pince's vulture-like stare and the entrance by the large bookshelves. Lily's gaze kept drifting to the window and across the lake, to their practice spot. Hermione kicked her softly.

"We're inside today, and the Slytherin half has done us the honor of a little research, so we have to pay attention," she teased. "You're as bad as James with his broomstick."

Severus' face darkened perceptibly at the mention of his rival, but Lily just rolled her eyes and politely returned her attention to the half-Italian witch seated across the table.

"He said 'the world you were born in', so we made a list of ancient magical sites, castles and manors in Britain. I was also thinking about your...talents...so I have a compendium of halls where it's played, the locales of some of the societies that used to exist-"

Hermione and Lily swapped startled, guilty looks. Klytemnestra, ever attuned to the undercurrents of a situation, stopped talking at once. "What is it?"

"I...I'm a Muggle-born," Hermione admitted quietly, and was surprised by her wash of shame. Not for her heritage, but for keeping it a secret that had led them to the wrong conclusion and hours of wasted effort. "We think he meant _that_ world."

Severus blinked, and his eyes flashed to Lily, who tilted her chin in defiant acknowledgement. But his cousin shook her head, raven hair catching the evening light in a ripple of iridescence.

"That's not possible."

Hermione's brow creased. "I assure you, it is. My parents have no magical abilities whatsoever, and neither do my grandparents or anyone else in my family."

Klytemnestra was continuing to swing her head back and forth. "Your parents might not, and their parents might not, but you are not a true Muggle-born. You cannot be."

"Why?"

"The Node is bound by blood," the Slytherin girl answered seriously. "The station has passed, wandering throughout Europe in the past fifteen hundred years, by virtue of Merlin's bloodline." She caught the Gryffindor's shocked brown eyes as all the dots connected.

"To be who you are, you _must _be related to Merlin."

**********

James Potter growled a curse under his breath. One of the four had anchored a Silencing Charm to the table in front of them, making all sounds within a five-foot radius impossible to make out, washing through their ears like the murmur of far-away voices. It was an extremely deceptive spell – most people would never bother to notice that with their proximity, they should be able to hear actual words if they were listening hard enough.

All four Marauders were stacked on the other side of the bookcase, straining frantically and getting nothing.

"_Why_ is she here with him to begin with?" Sirius muttered angrily. Hermione's relationship with the two Slytherins had noticeably thawed over the past two months, and it wasn't only her good friends who had seen it. In the Hogwarts gossip mill, it didn't rate top billing, but remained a steady third-and-fourth place topic of curiosity. The graceful, beautiful and pure-blooded Zabini twins and their sallow-faced, knowledgeable cousin had always been an odd trio, albeit one easily explained by the ties of family. But the disappearance of one sister, followed by the immediate closeness of this incredibly unlikely quad was hardly inconspicuous, and speculation ran from the absurd to the disturbingly believable. One of the girls in Hermione's dormitory had found herself at the business end of Sirius' wand just the night before for voicing what increasing numbers of students were wondering: had the fourteen-year-old, widely-hated Slytherin found himself a girlfriend?

Trina had almost swallowed the slick piece of wood, it had snapped into her face so fast, but even threats couldn't solve Sirius' real problem – for Hermione's best friends could not claim to know the answer for certain.

"_They_, Siri. Evans never struck me as the type to be overly fond of Snivelly before, either."

"Could it be for class?" Remus offered hopefully. There was no denying that the four looked set to learn, books haphazardly stacked on the table, quills, half-filled parchment and partially-empty ink bottles next to each elbow. "Lily, Snape and Hermione are all really good at Potions."

"But the other girl is an upper-year Slytherin. Fifth, I think. Very rich family," Sirius said dismissively.

"The one whose twin hasn't been seen in weeks," Peter supplied quietly.

"So, no, I would say studying is pretty much out of the question," James snapped. "A fifth year with a bunch of third years? And that doesn't account for all the times we've seen them whispering together, either."

"But they are-"

"Shh!"

Four pairs of eyes peered between strategically placed books as they watched Hermione go rigid with surprise, recently-tanned features whitening as Lily stared at her like she'd sprouted horns and Snape's dark eyes widened as he looked to his fellow House member. The next word coming from the transfer-in witch's lips needed no sound to translate:

"_What?"_

Unfortunately, Klytemnestra Zabini's back was to them, and their entire view consisted of her slender back and the waterfall of pitch-black hair tumbling over it.

"Damnable Slytherins!" James and Sirius hissed in unison and both drew their wands as they moved towards the end of bookcase, clearly planning to reveal themselves, when Remus' surprisingly strong fingers clamped around both sets of wrists.

"James. Sirius," he hissed. "Stop." He jerked his head at their thin-faced enemy, who was now only listening to his cousin's animated explanation with half an ear, black eyes scanning sharply. Remus muttered a spell to silence their space as well, tying it to _Cheering Charms: an Experiment in Laughter_ on the shelf above them.

"We still owe the bastard for a couple months back," James snarled.

"In the library?" Remus allowed his voice to rise, protected now by their cover. "In full view of Hermione? Siri, please...if you attack him here, not only will you both have detentions for fighting, but we'll have to deal with the girls' wrath."

"He's _always _with her," Sirius countered angrily, wrenching himself away from his friend. But Remus was relieved to see the wand get thrust furiously back into the other Gryffindor's deep pocket. "When she's not doing homework or Arithmantic equations for our...project-" even with charms, none of them spoke freely of their efforts outside of their dormitory or the Room of Requirement, "-they've always got their heads together. What is she _doing _with him?"

Remus took a deep breath, and let it out again, shaking his head. To have Hermione turn him away on Valentine's Day and then almost instantly be seen all over the castle with the surly boy had struck a deep blow. And though he had not witnessed anything in her demeanor that indicated anything closer than friendship between them, he had seen the same thing that Sirius, and indeed, half the school, had noticed. Whatever the witch's feelings, Severus Snape had fallen hard and fast for their bright friend and the thought of him touching her made the werewolf's skin crawl.

"We follow him. In a couple of days. It's spring, so he's bound to come creeping out of his dungeon lair for a walk on the grounds every once and a while," James was muttering, and their heads inclined together as their voices dropped again. "An ambush near the lake is much less remarkable than one inside. We'll get some answers then – and tell him to stop acting like a bitch puppy and quit stalking her."

Remus knew that he should put in a word against it; knew that he should prevent them from attacking the Slytherin simply because Snape had made a friend they didn't approve of; knew that they didn't own Hermione and had no right to dictate how she spent her time.

But a last glance through the bookcase revealed an unheard comment from the Slytherin, mischief dancing in his eyes, to be greeted with muted, but obviously uproarious, laughter from both Gryffindor girls, and Hermione's sun-darkened fingers closed over Snape's pale ones in appreciation.

And Remus couldn't bring himself to speak.

**********

Sunlight fell in stripes through the tree trunks, alternating shadow and brilliant green in rigidly-held structures until they fractured into a pattern cut by the leaves overhead. Hermione gazed blindly at the fragile beauty of growth – of the purple night flowers that would only live until dawn, of their white day-time cousins that were wilting even now.

She could feel the movement of the earth beneath her feet, the sluggish tides of underground water, the seeping drops that had been this morning's dew now trickling from particle to particle under her shoes to feed the roots of grass, trees and herbs. A faint movement in the trees twenty yards west – neither seen, nor heard, but felt – halted her, and she stood silently, barely breathing, as a brand-new fawn tottered uncertainly over a deer trail and into view, its mother guiding it, proud and alert, soft brown eyes ever-watchful. The young witch waited for them to pass before resuming her journey, wondering briefly how she had ever stumbled through her existence without this knowledge, lacking the constant reassurance of life in the ground, and the connection of such life.

She stopped before her oak and hesitated. It was strange, somehow, to stand here alone, completely unaided. The faint wish that she had brought Severus rose in her like a question mark. He belonged here, with her, hearing whatever answers their teacher could offer to her questions…

She shook away the peculiar feeling, and instead focused her thoughts, streamlining her questions. Hermione hoped the Dryad would give her the answers she needed, at the same time dreading the reasons that had prevented him from releasing this critical piece of information to begin with. But before she could build up her nerve to call forth their guide with her voice, the trunk opened, and out he glided, giving her a long stare.

"I felt your coming the instant you set foot on the lawns. But you come without the others. Without even your Major. You are troubled, Daughter."

Hermione nodded tightly. "I am."

"What has bothered you so?"

"Merlin." She saw his expression cloud very briefly – but it was all the confirmation she needed. "It's true then? I am related to him?"

"Yes. I wish…I would have had you wait to learn. It is…irrelevant for now."

Hermione's mouth twisted into a cynical smile. "I'll assume that's why you didn't tell me?" A tilt of the tree-branched head. "He was the most powerful wizard ever to grace Britain. The man who originally bound the Echo. How is this 'irrelevant'?"

"You are not he," the Dryad responded gently. "You – who worship learning and intelligence above all else…I knew what it would mean to you to know that your blood bears the same magic as the best of your species. Such knowledge is a powerful veil over your vision, possibly making you too proud or, conversely, trapping you in his shadow and therefore never becoming proud enough. But your accomplishments must be your own. You spoke already of his supreme achievement – but your aims are not what his were, your desires precisely the opposite. He sought only to restrain the Echo and its power – you are here to use it, to tame it. What use, right now, is knowing or not knowing? Blood is blood – you must choose what to do with the amount that runs in your veins without depending on the legacy of a wizard who has been dead for fifteen hundred years."

"But when you spoke of the world that I come from…" Hermione started hesitantly.

"It is true that you, like all of your kind, like all living creatures on earth, stand at the end of a long tradition, the result of the rise and fall of empires, magic, and customs. What do you know of the world of Merlin? Where would your journey begin if you start with him? You said it at our first meeting – the realm of your ancestor belongs to legend and to myth. The world you grew up in hold the answers to these questions. Like the bloodline that brought you the Echo, the men who no longer practice magic have unwittingly kept some of its most powerful traditions. And the many aspects of the world you know _now_ are all at your disposal – neither static nor lost, but growing and evolving. They are your gateway to the others – those who have hidden from or separated from men. After you have opened the gate, _after_ and not before, then there is space for Merlin and Merlin's blood."

"Then we _are_ to look to the Muggle world." It was not a question, but the wild-bark eyebrow simply rose quietly.

"That, Daughter, is for you to determine. As is the method of your search." The craggy face softened – an impression created by the eyes alone – and he added, "I am sorry for not informing you directly, but my reasoning was sound and I hope you see that."

It was Hermione's turn to dip her head. "I do. Part of me wishes you had – but perhaps, it does not matter now. You are correct – he can have little bearing on our current problems until I can learn more of the man and less of the myth." She smiled, this time with real pleasure, and finished, "And I think he would probably be quite proud of a descendent who can figure this out for herself."

**********

"At least it's not raining," Walden MacNair muttered as wind whipped through the Quidditch stands, alternating with the harsh rays of the sun to coat them all in a layer of icy perspiration. "Tell me again, Lucius, _why_ exactly do we care about the match between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor?"

"Because I am running out of time," the blond muttered, shaking back the shining locks falling over his shoulders. "I need a way in. I couldn't care less about the game – watch Evans and Granger. I need an ally."

Walden debated mentioning that there were two possibilities much closer to home – sitting just two rows ahead of them, in fact, but held his tongue. The last time he had voiced the thought that surely a mere fourteen-year-old had to be open to a particularly persuasive argument, Lucius had spun on him furiously, pointing at Snape and hissing, "_That _boy cannot be bought. You know how hard I have tried."

So he trained his Omnioculars on the two girls ensconced on the Gryffindor benches, surrounded by three of the four boys who tagged Granger, in particular, everywhere. He frowned. They were remarkably unremarkable – sitting and giggling like a pair of normal girls on an early spring morning. He would never believe his best friend's stories of extraordinary power had he not witnessed it first hand.

His gut frosted, and he shoved that line of thought out of his head. That winter night remained in his nightmares, only recently beginning to recede from his waking mind. The presence of a deep magic that he could neither understand nor control haunted him. The expectation that he would shortly join the Death Eaters was all that kept him from abandoning Lucius' schemes. Given his way, he would never again risk touching the eerie power that had surged in the forest.

"There. Walden, look at Evans."

"What do you think I'm doing?" he groused.

"What's her center of focus?" Lucius asked in a clipped tone, completely ignoring his friend's caustic displeasure.

Walden tore his gaze from Granger – now deep in conversation with Lupin and utterly ignoring the field over her head – and instead trained his eyes on Evans. Unlike her dorm mate, the red-head's eyes were fixed unblinkingly upward, her body taut and half-risen from her seat, lips drawn back in excitement. Walden swung his head to follow her line of sight, her intensity compelling his movement.

His eyes settled on a Beater just as the Gryffindor player struck a spectacular blow, thick club blurring as it _cracked_ on a Bludger, sending their opposite number spinning when the ball connected with his broom, the Quaffle flying into James Potter's outstretched hands.

"What's his name?" came Lucius' breathless whisper. Walden shrugged and leaned over a row to address Calvin Nott, Captain of Slytherin's team.

"Who's the Gryffindor aiming to break bones?" he muttered casually. Nott's face twisted.

"Same bloke that landed Don Parkinson in the hospital after our match. Walt Winters."

"Walt Winters," Walden reported sharply as he sat up.

Lucius smirked, his grey eyes reflecting the sneer on his face, anxiety vanished as the nimble mind hastily constructed a plan. "If the rumors are correct, Evans is dating him. I can't believe I never thought of him before." Omnioculars once more followed the swooping broomsticks as the Slytherin tracked his prey and the aristocrat added, almost as a side note:

"Find out his class schedule."

**********

"I think the next step is practicing mass transfiguration and displacement," Hermione told them, kneeling on Sirius' bed with three books and a complex pattern of parchment laid out in front of her. Remus was peering over her shoulder.

"This looks awfully complicated," he said nervously.

"James – don't!" Hair still dripping wet from his shower after Gryffindor's final, hard-fought victory, James hastily sat back, the water threatening Hermione's notes dripping instead on his best friend's pillow.

"Remus is right – I can't make heads nor tails of this," Sirius admitted, poring over a page of equations. "I can see that the mass here is equal, and the mass at the end is equal – but where does it go in this stage?" he asked, tapping the center of the sheet.

"That's why we have to practice," Hermione answered. "There's an emerging theory in Arithmancy-" her hand flipped towards a thick, but glossy, professional journal that looked very much out of place amongst the heavy, dust-laden books "-about _nil_-space – that is to say, space that doesn't exist in any way we can measure it, but must be present because it contains certain physical objects. It's rather like memory: memory access is a function of the human brain, but memories may not actually be stored there – they might be kept somewhere else. The Room of Requirement's magic may work using _nil-_space – certainly all Expansion Charms and mass displacement must have some underlying principle that allows them to function. Where does the space come from? Or, perhaps more accurately, where do the things that we put into such space – mass – go?"

The four boys were staring at her blankly. "Riiiight," Pettigrew was the first to say, glancing at the rest for help. "And this matters because…?"

"If James is to become a stag, that animal easily weighs two-and-a-half times his human body weight. Where does that mass come from to become a stag? It is not simply created and shed whenever one switches forms. The amount of energy that would require is enormous. It must come from and then go to somewhere else. If I transfigure into a phoenix, that's a creature with no more than one-eighth my normal mass. Again, where does it go while I am the phoenix? Obviously not too far, because an Animagi does not have to perform a complex ritual to return to human form."

"Sorry, 'Mione, I know you love science, but – as long as the magic works, isn't that all that counts? I mean, does the actual method really matter?"

Hermione resisted the urge to roll her eyes and sigh aloud, reminding herself that three of the four boys were not academicians at heart, but willing to work hard as a means to their ultimate end. "For us, James, the method _does _matter. Wizards and witches who attempt this kind of magic are all well beyond us in terms of age and skill. They have learned magics that we are not introduced to here, and they can acquire items and tools that are not available to us. We cannot simply mimic their steps and get the right answer like the recipe for a cake."

"So what do we do?" Sirius asked, frowning.

"We understand theory," she grinned back at him. "We learn the old-fashioned way: practice makes perfect."

"How?"

"By using our wands to displace the mass of other objects and return them to their original state. We'll do objects before we do ourselves." She flipped open the journal and pointed to a picture. A muddy tangle of roots ended in a brilliant white lotus flower on the page. "And this is our next problem to solve before we start practicing on people. When transfiguring ourselves, we will not want to run the risk of sending the whole body and mind into _nil-_space by accident. The Bottom-Feeding Lotus is used to treat mental illness because it anchors some part of the psyche to the physical world. If we want to practice safely, we need one. I can't imagine having your mind utterly erased and replaced by a dog's – or a lion's."

"But…" James led her out.

"But, it is only available at the very bottom of deep fresh-water bodies. And it must be used within a two-mile radius of where it grew."

"So we have to find this thing," Remus said. "At Hogwarts."

"Here or near someone's house this summer," Hermione confirmed.

"Why can't anything about this process be easy?" Sirius grumbled.

"It's magic so advanced that most wizards and witches are not capable of performing it at all – and those who can have years of study behind them. Did you expect to do it overnight?"

The momentary flash of irritation through the black eyes made her laugh aloud with the realization that he had proposed this fantastic feat with such an expectation. "Sorry – this isn't your standard curriculum, Siri."

"I think I've figured that out," he muttered. "What do we want to practice on first?"

"You have noticed that Professor McGonagall gives us objects to transform into things of almost exactly the same mass? Matchsticks into needles, medium-sized turtles into teapots – those kinds of thing?"

"Yes…?"

"That's to save us the complications of dealing with _nil_-space. A few grams of weight can be created or shed without difficulty. So what I think we should do first is try transforming gravel-" she was pulling shiny pebbles out of her bag, "-into birds. It's a big enough difference to draw on mass from somewhere else, but it's not a huge one."

"Okay." James seized a smooth black stone, settling it on the duvet in front of him. "What's the incantation?"

**********

"This one is useless." Klytemnestra sighed as she tossed _Muggles' Magical Superstitions_ onto the growing pile of books that had been skimmed and discarded. "You're sure the Dryad agrees with you?"

"He was quite clear on the fact that Merlin is not our starting point," Hermione repeated.

After the young Gryffindor recounted her brief meeting with the Dryad, the dark-haired cousins had conceded that the Muggle world now seemed the more likely place to begin – but since formulating their hypothesis, they had found nothing that seemed to strike the cord they were looking for. Combing history books charting the persecution of magic back to the time of Hogwarts, and the resurgence of magic in popular fiction during the twentieth century had left them with a single discouraging conclusion that Lily and Hermione had discovered long ago: Muggles were very inventive when it came to their kind. But not one of them had recorded anything that might assist them in their search.

"I maintain that this would be more productive if we knew exactly what we're looking for," Lily muttered in plain exasperation, shoving _Modern Witchcraft for Muggles_ to dangle perilously off the edge of the table. "The Muggle world is enormous. I don't like cryptic."

"I think it's something we'll understand better if we find it ourselves," Hermione replied abstractly, her quill moving slowly as she jotted down a title found in a stained, yellow index. "The kind of knowledge that can't be told."

Severus suddenly straightened in his seat. The sharp movement, so different than their several days of lazy page-turning, brought all three pairs of eyes flashing to him hopefully. But the slim book lying in front of him had been forgotten. His head was half-turned, eyes unfocussed, his concentration directed outward.

Before she could ask, Hermione's ears caught the murmurs that had become words on the other side of the bookcase.

"-but going out at _night_? To Hogsmeade?" came the nervous question.

"When else? It's hardly a day-time event," was the bright reply. "The real stuff happens after sundown."

"But we're not allowed-"

"In a school of a thousand, _who_ is going to know? It's not like Flitwick tucks us into bed and gives us a goodnight kiss every evening."

"But leaving Hogwarts after dark…"

"The Beltaine Festival is held every year. And none of us are ever allowed to go. Hogsmeade, practically our back yard, is thrown open just this one night to Muggle tourists – for this occasion only, while we, who can wield magic, are denied. Claudia and I are definitely going. Are you coming?"

Hermione ceased to listen, her sparkling eyes colliding with Severus', their thoughts reaching the same conclusions. "Beltaine-" he started in an excited whisper.

"A ritual some say is as old as Britain herself…still being practiced by Muggles," Hermione finished quietly.

"Nonsense and superstition." Klytemnestra cut them off imperiously, turning back to her text impatiently. "Beltaine and May Day are for Muggles who wish to be mages – everyone knows there's nothing really special about the solstices, equinoxes and all the other stuff Muggles like to dabble in."

"'Look to the world you were born in,'" Lily quoted gently. "He spoke of needing something endorsed by our Muggle counterparts that we have discarded, for whatever reason." She laughed quietly as she connected the rest of the dots. "And in Merlin's time, this was one of their widely acknowledged holy festivals – maybe for wizards and witches as well as Muggles."

_A gateway_, Hermione thought. _The one that opens the ancient world to the contemporary._

The older girl's head snapped up again, a frown creasing her eyebrows. "We outgrew this mumbo-jumbo for a good reason. There are shelves of books written by those who have tried to discover if there are calendar days when magical prowess waxes and wanes – with the seasons, the elements, the tides, the phases of the moon. Some of the modern titles were inspired by Muggle philosophy and practices. But the fact remains that there is nothing concrete to prove that any day is better or worse than others. Magic is magic, regardless of when it occurs."

"Perhaps conventional magic is that way," Hermione countered, a smile curving her lips. "But we are dealing with music, and with other beings. What if the power is not real, but perceived?"

"If we need the help of other races, and they honor such days, we should as well," Severus completed the thought. "The import of such observance is all the power such days require in their eyes."

His cousin's furrowed brow had deepened, but the objection in her eyes had turned into thoughtfulness, and a smirk of respect as she glanced at Severus. "Very astute."

"Thank you."

"There is probably more than that," Lily mused. "The dryad said that Muggles have wrapped them in meaningless ritual, but I think that under that, he hinted that there was something truly important. What if wizards and witches refused to participate because it was getting too cluttered?"

"I think Severus' point was well-made. Perhaps for us the importance is in the act of simply acknowledging such days – a reminder, however twisted by modern fashions, of the world that once existed," Hermione said. "An _unbroken_ tradition – which is exactly what the Dryad said."

"I think it's useless to continue speculating," Severus announced, pushing back from the table. "And equally futile to continue sitting here reading about a subject that cannot be told, so why would it be written about? We should go to the Beltaine festival in Hogsmeade."

"Another excursion based on breaking the rules," Hermione sighed, almost under her breath. "Why am I not surprised?"

"What is the point of solving a puzzle that works within the rules?" Severus asked, almost uncharacteristically cheerful with this potential breakthrough. "We have two days to decide. Are we going?"

The three girls swapped glances, each daring the others to be the voice of reasonable caution that no one wanted to pronounce. Even Klytemnestra seemed to have surrendered her doubts to curiosity and the best lead they'd had in days.

None were surprised when the decision, by default, was to go.

**********

"Maybe I _should_ have joined the Slug Club," Sirius joked nervously as the two boys made their way to Slughorn's office. "He'd probably give us pastries and pumpkin juice."

"And a bedtime story about the best people he'd taught now occupying the highest seats of the Ministry," James finished scornfully. His glance towards his best friend grew solemn. "You've always known why you don't want to join in on that elitist claptrap."

"Hermione did. Evans did."

"They're Muggle-born," James answered with a shrug. "He wanted them for their brains – he'd never have even noticed yours. The line of your ancestors is too long for _you_ to matter to him at all."

"Hopefully he'll answer an unusual question anyway," the taller boy replied. They turned a corner and, swapping looks of mutual trepidation, strode up to the dark mahogany door, Sirius' fist falling to _thud _against it politely.

"Come in!" The cheerful voice of their Potions professor beckoned them onward. The boys shuffled inside to see him wrapped comfortably in a velvet smoking jacket, his over-stuffed armchair matching the luxuriant roundness of his stomach.

"Sirius!" He hastily set aside the book he had been reading and rose, smiling, his entire focus on the elder son of Aries Black, James fading into the wall like a well-trained dog – unworthy of notice. "What an unexpected pleasure. Are you reconsidering my recent invitation? I can assure you that not all of our guests are Ministry speakers. Why, Matthew Wainwright of the Chudley Cannons is going to be coming for my last little dinner in May-"

"Sorry, Professor," Sirius cut Slughorn off firmly in the polite voice reserved for the drawing rooms of the upper crust, a rare reminder of who the renegade boy had been raised to be. "But I'm actually here about a bit of research."

James almost burst into laughter at the look of concrete disappointment rearranging the portly face. He could almost hear Professor McGonagall's jaw drop as he imagined Sirius saying the same thing to her. Their Head of House had never been able to hide her pride and fondness for their ability in her subject – nor her displeasure that they never undertook to stretch themselves academically. Only this man would be sorry that Sirius had come to talk business instead of pleasure.

Slughorn hastily erased his expression as Sirius smiled faintly and pulled his facial muscles into an appropriate look of delight for a teacher counseling a precocious student. "You have? That's…that's wonderful, my boy! Potions for you, is it? I've never thought you all that interested, though you're certainly a dab hand at them-"

"It's an ingredient, sir," Sirius deftly interrupted, directing the Slytherin's attention to the book he had just pulled open. "This flower, Professor. Its healing properties seem to have vast potential, but of course, they're quite difficult to find. I was wondering if you would know, perhaps, where I might go looking…so that I can run some tests?"

The sharp interest in Slughorn's eyes was genuine as he studied the ink-and-paint illustration Sirius had extended. "The Bottom-Feeding Lotus." All traces of jovial paternalism disappeared, leaving a scientist studying an unusual phenomenon with a good eye. "Fascinating plant, as your reading has doubtless told you." His shrewd eyes travelled to Sirius' perfectly straight face. "A rare one, as you have noted. What drew your attention to it?"

"It's unique capacity to bind some or all of the mind to this plane of existence while the body quests elsewhere," Sirius reeled off, though James had to give him credit – it didn't sound like the rote, memorized phrase they had painstakingly learned word-for-word from Hermione.

"Very interesting." Slughorn was nodding appreciatively. "We can ask Albus for permission – I can hardly imagine that he'll say no – and see what we can find. Of course, you'll need an advisor for such a project…might I hope to do the honors?"

James hurriedly turned his snort into a cough. There was no one else to do them, as the Slytherin knew quite well. "Of course, sir," Sirius lied graciously. "Professor Dumbledore?" he pressed.

"Oh yes." Their rotund teacher smiled indulgently. "These loti grow well in all kinds of water, from freezing to tropical. We'll need to ask him to speak to the Mer-people. There's a colony located on the bottom of our lake."

**********

"The _lake_?"

Remus did not share his friends' enthusiasm for this discovery. Neither did Pettigrew. The narrow eyes had flown instantly to the iron-grey water sluggishly lapping the grass not ten feet from them.

"C'mon, Remus," James laughed, sprawled out lazily in the sun, his body molding to the ground as if boneless. "It's spring, the water is getting warmer every day – it could be covered with ice, you know."

"James, I hate to be the one crowding you with reality, but water is not _breathable_. It doesn't matter how hot or cold it is, there's no way even the strongest swimmer can make it to the bottom and back in the three or four minutes of air you have in your lungs, much less grub around for a plant. How do you propose to solve _that _problem?"

"There are charms – the Bubble-head Charm the sixth-years are learning, for one," Sirius said easily.

"Maybe. I still think it's foolish," their worn friend said sharply. "And so do you – otherwise Hermione would be here. But you don't want her talking you out of it. And how are you going to explain to Professor Slughorn that you have no real desire to embark on this kind of 'research' at all?"

James and Sirius traded scowls that then, by unspoken agreement, turned on Remus. But before they could voice their objections, Pettigrew's slouched form straightened, a scavenger sighting potential prey.

"Snivellus," he announced in a low voice, half-eager, half-frightened. The two lean, dark-haired boys reacted like dogs to their master's whistle. Both bounded upright, as if the grass itself had thrown them to their feet, and all the afternoon's promised relaxation vanished, tension filling the vacuum instantly.

Their rival strode into full view not three yards away. "Snivelly!" Sirius called by way of greeting. Severus halted, an invisible leash pulled tight, his jaw tightening noticeably even at a distance.

"Yes, Black?" he answered scornfully, not bothering to turn and face them.

"At the beginning of the year, you proposed thestral blood." James' hated voice filled his ears. "I have a different challenge."

"Oh, Potter?" Now the Slytherin did look to them, swinging his body casually, his posture telling them that they were merely an annoyance, not a threat-

-and meaning it. Sirius felt a shaft of unease as he realized that Severus' blustering attempt to shield his fear of them behind viciousness, a large part of the fun in their continuing enmity, had vanished. The long hands were tucked inside his pocket robes, but the muscles were loose, not taut as if gripping a wand, and the black eyes gazed at them contemptuously – exasperation their only acknowledgement of the long-standing feud.

Sirius ground his teeth. If the greasy-haired boy thought that his friendship with Hermione would save him, it was time he learned that she only bought him breathing room.

"The lake," James was saying coldly, and Sirius knew that his best friend had spotted the unnerving signs he had seen as well, and that his desire to return their sallow classmate to familiar ground was driving his words. "There's a kind of flower at the bottom. A lotus. The first person to retrieve one is the winner."

"A lotus from a lake?" Severus sneered. "Turning over a new ear in Herbology, Potter, or am I supposed to help you woo your lost lady love?" He flicked his hand dismissively. "Forget it. I'm not a matchmaker. When you can come up with something a little less girlish, I'll gladly accommodate your desire for humiliation."

"Coward," Sirius' lip was curled disdainfully with a snarl, and he was rewarded by watching his enemy's face lock into rigid lines. New-found confidence or not, the insult still landed a bulls eye on the target.

"Fine thing to say, Black, when I will be facing all four of you underwater on my own."

"Surely those bully boys you sit with in class will join you," James tossed back carelessly.

"I would have better chances with my cousin…and Hermione Granger." Recovery made, this time it was Severus' mouth that curved into a cold smile as he watched everyone but Pettigrew snap to attention, Remus' normally gentle eyes hardening to granite.

"Words, Snivelly," James spat. "She would never stand against us."

_Would she?_ Severus wondered. He would not ask her, of course, as he would not ask Klytemnestra. There were some battles that one did not summon armies for – and his private war with Potter and Black had to be kept out of Hermione's sight. _But I am her Major…_he nearly smiled at the rapidly growing store of memories of music spun from their fingertips, the weaving of a magic entirely their own. The hours in the forest had crafted a world outside of Hogwarts, a country in which nothing mattered but the notes they sent piping into the air. It bound them more thoroughly than any House affiliation could tie her to these four.

"She wouldn't rise to your defense, either," he finally answered, his voice steady.

"And it won't be four of us," James quickly added, ignoring the other boy's last words as if he could forget they were true. "Just me. Fancy that, Snape? A little one-on-one combat? The winner gets fifty Galleons."

"Only a spoiled child would bet so much of his father's money. I, at least, have the honor not to wager what I don't have. I will take pleasure in beating you, but the loser will do the winner's homework for a week – to the standard expected by our professors."

James squinted at him. The price was not cheap. Their talents lay in diametrically opposing fields – to complete Severus' Potions and Defense work properly would take hours in the library. _Then don't lose_, his mind supplied. He nodded shortly. "Agreed. Tonight. Midnight."

The Slytherin boy hesitated. Tonight. That would mean missing the Beltaine outing…and it had been his idea to go…

But Potter's voice was enough to make his jaw tight, and Black's ever-condescending commentary desperately needed correction. If this task took him forty-five minutes…they had planned on sneaking off to the festival at ten-o'clock…surely he could catch up to them?

"Nine-thirty," he countered.

"In a hurry to be nowhere?" Sirius asked.

"I don't see what business it is of yours what I do with my time. Or who." He was rewarded with another wince from the boys in front of him, but even as the tallest Gryffindor reached for his wand, a slender eyebrow rose. "Draw on me now and you forfeit the challenge. I'll gladly drop my books on your table at dinner."

James reached over and seized his best friend's wrist, shooting the furious black eyes a quelling glance. "Fine. Nine-thirty."

A short, sardonic bow of acceptance and Severus started to move away, as if they had completed a business transaction. "It's a good thing Quidditch is over, isn't it? You'll have plenty of time to do my work this week."

"I'm sure your lack of social life won't interfere with you doing mine," James returned with the ease of expertise.

"Just make sure you're not failing my classes by pining away over Lily Evans while she enjoys herself with her _real_ boyfriend," came Snape's final remark. At this, Remus fastened both arms about James' middle as the Chaser leaped forward, hands outstretched in claws, ready to rake the other boy's face as he strode away.

"We have other problems than Snape right now," he panted, struggling against the lean player's greater agility and strength as Severus dwindled from sight along the shore of the lake. "The first of which is: how are we going to get you to breathe underwater for at least the half-hour you'll need to get to the bottom, find this flower, and bring it back up?"

**********

"Snape, I heard you're going for a swim." Rodolphus Lestrange was seated too-casually on his bed when the sallow boy entered, his posture making it clear that he had been waiting for this moment.

"Exercise is generally thought to be beneficial, yes," Severus returned, blandly cautious. There was no telling what rumors had been spit into the other boy's ears, and Severus wasn't keen to clarify them unconditionally.

"True – but one might recommend it during daylight hours and not while struggling with a sworn enemy to get to the bottom of a _very_ deep mountain lake."

Long fingers flexed in irritation. Clearly, the news had travelled intact. Severus did not bother to wonder how. A castle with a thousand adolescents had more ears than any spy story. He would have to pray that it did not reach Hermione. He doubted she would approve of or understand his mission tonight; especially since this escapade meant that he would be late for Beltaine…he had to think of a good excuse to delay himself without telling the truth. He knew that while his cousin might understand his need to deal with Potter, the two Gryffindor girls never would.

"What do you want, Les?" he snapped, dropping the game he hated playing. He had much to do before tonight, including finding a way to breathe in the lake.

The bigger boy stood, matching Severus' honesty. "You've been distant lately, Sev, and I have to say I don't approve. You've got those Gryffindor bitches and that high-and-mighty cousin of yours all tangled up around you. Now, I know you're going to say that Avery's an idiot and – between us – you're right. He's caused a lot of problems with you – him and Tim Wilkes, too. I know it. But here's question you should be thinking about: When we leave Hogwarts, you're going to belong to a world where that Granger girl and the Evans Mudblood don't fit. Do you really want to be alienating a whole future of potential allies for a pretty face or two?"

Silence fell in the wake of his bald statement, and the training of a lifetime under his father's brutal management was all preventing Severus from raising a clenched fist and smashing it against the other wizard's nose. Lestrange seemed to see through his robes to the battle raging within, and when Severus mastered his impulse to lay his roommate out flat, amusement flashed in the dark eyes and a cocky smile spread on the broad features.

"On a more immediate note," Lestrange's tone was casual, returning their interaction to that of fourteen-year-olds, "I can tell you how to survive underwater tonight if you'll write my essay on the Properties of Rose Quartz for Professor Slughorn."

**********

"Where is Severus?" Hermione asked quietly as Klytemnestra slipped into the Out-of-Order girl's bathroom. Moaning Myrtle's constantly-gushing lavatory was proving as useful now as it had twenty years in the future.

Klytemnestra grimaced inwardly at the lie her cousin had begged her to tell, but heard the words coming easily from her tongue. "He started his potion today later than he should have and has to add things carefully for the next fifteen minutes. He said he'll catch up."

Lily frowned, forest-shaded eyes darkening as she twisted a curl around her finger. "Maybe we should wait. The road to Hogsmeade is dark. Something could happen to him."

"If we wait, we might miss something of importance," her friend countered, sighing. "We're already starting later than we should to avoid the teachers, and we're not exactly going to have fun."

"I can stay behind and wait for him," Klytemnestra offered, cursing Severus as she said it, realizing that this was one outing to the village that she truly wanted to go on.

Hermione was shaking her head thoughtfully. "No…we don't know how many pairs of eyes and ears we'll need. The road is dark, but there's nothing on it, and the creatures of the Forbidden Forest keep to themselves. Severus is capable. He'll be all right traveling alone."

They fell quiet, the wild-haired witch tapping her foot in thought, wondering what had induced Severus – always so eager to put _everything_ aside for a hint of music – to make himself unavailable right now. Carelessness was utterly unlike the professor she trusted, and the boy had proven very like the man in this regard.

Still, he was only fourteen. Pushing aside her irritation for this inconvenience, she gestured to the tapestry concealing a corridor that would lead to a door that would spit them out on the road-side of the castle. "If we're not going to wait for him, shall we?"

**********

Stars blurred against the sky, the warm air of a spring night dulling the edges made by winter's crispness. Severus slid out of the castle, at ease in the darkness as he never was in broad daylight, luxuriating in the cover of midnight-blue. This far north, the sky had only truly darkened just a half-hour before, and by the time solstice arrived in June, the dim rim of twilight would illumine the mountains until ten o'clock.

Their practice schedule had long accustomed the young wizard to sneaking in and out of the school in all kinds of weather, and he ambled along easily, hugging the tree-line until he reached the shores of the lake, the glass-smooth water reflecting a swollen moon from its black surface.

True to his word, only James Potter stood there, tucked against a large boulder that shielded him from Hogwarts, his eyes locked on the cold water. Severus melted forward from the forest and glided up beside him.

James jumped as he felt the presence materialize at his left shoulder. He glowered at his rival of three years. "Didn't anyone ever teach you any manners?"

"Terrified I was a creature come to grind your bones for my bread, Potter?" Severus whispered, dark eyes glittering.

"You're such a git," the other boy snapped, nerves taut from the short wait and the still evening. "Are we going to do this, or do I have to stand around listening to you try to be clever for the rest of the night?"

"I am ready. It's you who seems to be shivering. There's no need to go if you don't feel up to it."

James glanced down at the goose bumps that had erupted all over his bare arms and legs, and brought his eyes back to Severus'. "It's a bit chilly if you're not covered in robes," he said acidly.

Shaking coal-black hair out of his eyes, the Slytherin shed his light cloak and pulled his robes off over his head, revealing tar-colored swimming trunks. Without waiting for any kind of signal, the instant he released the wool of his day-clothes, his hands came together over his head, left on top of right and, bending his knees, he jumped, cutting into the water in a shallow dive.

Cursing for the moment lost, James hastily followed him, wand flickering up to cast the Bubble-Head Charm he had practiced with Ludo Bagman that afternoon.

Severus kicked hard, shooting downwards and delighting in the cool, easy sensation of water flowing around him. Lestrange's method had been peculiar – but it worked. The spell he had found was a little-known piece of Blood Magic discovered in a book nicked from Evan Rosier's father's library. Most of the essays and illustrations would have earned the owner an expulsion – or a year's worth of detentions at the very least – but this charm was neither dark nor difficult, just strange. It had been easy enough to garner a live fish from the ever-eager House-elves, slit it open, and, after pricking his own finger, bathe his hands in the blood, a short ritual incantation allowing the attributes of the water-dweller into his blood stream. He could feel oxygen in his lungs without needing to breathe it, and the water, which he knew to be freezing for his human body, felt no more than faintly chilly.

Swift, sure strokes carried him to the mud-and-silt covered earth long before he expected to reach it. Maybe the lake wasn't so deep as imagined. He gazed around, treading water lightly, trying not to disturb the dirt and cause it to swirl up around him. Where would one find a Bottom-Feeding Lotus? In the grey-green-black water, it should be easy to find the white plant, the purity of its color a beacon in the dark.

He could not see the object of his search, so he chose a direction and began to swim again, eyes scanning sharply over the lake floor.

He had been straining for five minutes when movement next to him caught his eye and brought him up short, legs pedaling once more as he stared.

It was not Potter, as he had half-expected. Nor was it one of the Mer-people who lived in the lake. The young woman in front of him seemed to flow, as if fashioned by the water itself, the currents swirling to make the deep silver-jade of her eyes, the graceful extensions of slender arms and legs ending in thin-spun webs between fingers and toes. He felt heat rising to his face and dropped his eyes as his gaze traveled over her body to find her unabashedly naked, small blue-grey breasts bobbing with the faint movement of the water. He studied the ground intensely, guiltily wondering what Hermione would think if she could see him and simultaneously feeling that the water-woman's lack of dress did not matter.

"What brings you, Son of Earth, to these waters when those who need you are walking another road?" Her voice was gentle and lilting; carrying with it the quiet rush of the sea in a shell, and offering no rebuke in its tone, but shame scalded him abruptly. _Son of Earth_. The same title that the Dryad had given him.

What _was_ he doing here, playing at being a schoolboy, as if Potter and Black truly mattered anymore? Their rivalry was a game for children and he, who had been granted the privilege of knowing another world, was wasting his valuable time quibbling now, breaking a promise he had made to the only people he had ever cared about to scrape the lake floor for an item he couldn't care less about just to prove…what?

"_You are her Major_." The faun's words echoed loudly, filling his ears underwater.

"Your place is with her, young Severus," the woman whispered in her silvery voice, his thoughts coming back to him from her mouth. "Now and always. You are her Major."

"Yes." This time, he lifted his eyes to stare into her ancient gaze, and it was no mystery that she knew who and what he was. "You are the Spirit of the Lake."

"I am. Naiad is the name given to my kind by men." A smile fluidly slid across her mouth. "Hurry, Son of Earth. You do not belong here. Open yourself to what you seek. A child of water has given you blood, and Earth has claimed you as one of her own. Find the lotus not with your eyes, but with your gift."

So saying, she vanished. He blinked. There had been no flashes of light or _cracks_ of Apparition. She had simply…disappeared. Back into the liquid that had created her, a seamless re-integration of elements that made him wonder very briefly if she had ever been there at all.

_A child of water_…the fish. It was easy to recall the way he could sometimes feel the Earth under his feet now, the sense of growth, of life, of millions of lives going on in, around and under it…

He closed his eyes and stretched out his legs, letting his feet squelch into the slick bottom, seeking the connection that he had forgotten…

Not twenty yards to his left, he felt the spreading root system of the lotus waving gently in the sluggish undertow. He struck out, eyes still closed, eager to take the flower and be done with it. The idea of beating the Gryffindor boy he hated had drifted to the back of his mind. All that mattered was to finish as quickly as possible and catch up to his Node, to take his station at her side.

The bright-white flower gleamed, utterly out of place amongst the dark-green ferns and tangle of brown roots seeking their purchase in the mud. He pointed his wand at it and severed the stem neatly from the mother plant, delicately pinching it in one hand as he kicked back towards the surface.

As his head popped back into air and starlight, and saw James Potter's head emerging as well, two bursts of white exploding onto the dark surface as they brought up their flowers and swam wearily to the shoreline.

"You have one?" the disappointment in James' voice was plain, but Severus ignored him as he spelled himself dry and hastily re-dressed, his classmate long dismissed as irrelevant as his mind walked the path to Hogsmeade…he checked his watch and noted that it had taken them a bare thirty minutes. If he hurried, he should be able to overtake the girls on the road now.

"I guess this means no homework for either of us," the Gryffindor said.

"Agreed."

"The lotus?" James' hands were clearly itching to pick up the flower where Severus had so carelessly discarded it on the boulder. Flicking his hand impatiently, the pale boy nearly told him simply to take it, but stopped himself. In spite of the fact that it rose from the mud, the plant grew clean, unsullied and shining. He caressed a soft, white petal and smiled to himself. A fitting gift for someone, perhaps for the summer holiday. Loti had quite a lifespan as long as they were kept in water.

"Fruits of my labor and mine to keep," Severus answered, scooping it up. Part of him was dimly pleased at the look of irritation on James' face, but mostly he simply wanted to escape without making excuses.

"What are you going-" James started to ask, and then stopped himself even as a long finger lifted in a gesture for silence.

Voices were floating to them on the low breeze now ruffling the edges of the water. The polished honey tones of the first were ones the Slytherin instantly recognized, with a chill far colder than the water had been. Lucius Malfoy.

The second speaker was not so familiar, but he saw the dawning horror on his adversary's face that, for once, had nothing to do with him.

"I require…certain information regarding the girl. I'm sure you can see what's in it for you." Malfoy's voice had the cool superiority of a man making a deal far beneath him. "I told you what I am prepared to pay."

The other was also male, and sounded distinctly less sure. "And you…you promise that Lily won't get hurt? And she won't find out?"

"My word," the aristocrat purred.

"Okay…yeah. I'll do it. I'll keep track of Hermione for you. It won't be too hard – she and Lily are pretty much inseparable."

James' brown gaze filled with murderous rage and betrayal as he turned to Severus, the first and only time the boys would find themselves in complete accord in their lives.

"That's Walt Winters," the Chaser spat furiously.

The click of comprehension was an unwelcome one. "Lily's _boyfriend?_"

***********

Please let me know what you think!


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